A solid exegetic demanding further analysis—and answers from big pharma.
A dispiriting behind-the-scenes look at how prescription drugs are manufactured and distributed in the U.S.
“The systems to discover, develop, distribute, and pay for pharmaceuticals has become excessively complex, with too many mouths to feed and too much temptation for profit-seeking. All of these problems come at the cost of public health.” So write Kinch and Weiman in this vigorous examination of the countless players involved in the production of pharmaceuticals, a process that was initially designed to create safe, effective, available, and affordable medicine. The authors walk us through the ever increasing complexities that led from the corner drugstore to big pharma, showing how the introduction of new levels of bureaucracy and management—often with the good intention of increasing safety and decreasing costs—almost always spawned unintended consequences, not least of which were rising medical expenses for consumers. “Industry consolidation and outsourcing,” write the authors, “facilitated the creation of ‘middleman’ organizations, usually venture-backed startup companies, which in turn were required to generate profitability to keep the doors open and satiate their investors.” The authors do an admirable job dissecting an unwieldy industry that operates with utter opacity (original chemical formulas understandably, pricing not so much). Each additional layer—e.g., molecular chemistry for production, bulk manufacture, chain pharmacies and the elimination of competition, early regulation, the FDA, clinical trials, sales and marketing, advertising, mergers and acquisitions, pharmacy benefit managers, patent law, outsourcing research and discovery—adds further costs, usually hidden and passed on to consumers. Working with the information at hand, the authors contend that pricing has all to do with what the market will bear, a common theme in any profit-heavy industry. Though some readers may get tangled up in the numbers, such is the nature of the beast, and the resulting portrait is clear—and largely disheartening.
A solid exegetic demanding further analysis—and answers from big pharma.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64313-680-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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