Pick your pill out of a hat
Bad Pharma. By Ben Goldacre. Fourth Estate; 430 pages; £13.99. To be published in America in January by Faber and Faber; $28. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
DOCTORS like to project an air of authority when making their clinical decisions. Patients like it too, for it is reassuring to think that one’s health is in the hands of an expert. It would be unsettling if, upon prescribing you a drug, your doctor admitted that the scientific research about what exactly the drug did, and how effective it was at doing it, was patchy and distorted, sometimes to the point where nobody has any real idea of what effects the drugs they are prescribing are likely to have on their patients.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Pick your pill out of a hat”
From the September 29th 2012 edition
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