Resources

• Abramson, John. Overdo$ed America: the broken promise of American medicine. New York, NY. Harper Collins, 2004.

• Angell, Marcia. The truth about the drug companies: how they deceive us and what to do about it. New York, NY. Random House, 2004.

• Avorn, Jerry. Powerful medicines: the benefits, risks, and costs of prescription drugs. New York, NY. Knopf, 2004.

• Brody, Howard. Hooked: ethics, the medical profession, and the pharmaceutical industry. New York, NY. Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007.

• Brownlee, Shannon. Overtreated: why too much medicine is making us sicker and poorer. New York, NY. Bloomsbury, 2007.

• Cohen, Jay. Over dose: The case against the drug companies. New York, NY. Penguin, 2001.

• Critser, Greg. Generation Rx: how prescription drugs are altering American lives, minds, and bodies. Mariner Books, 2007.

• Cundiff, David. Whistleblower doctor: The politics and economics of pain and dying. 2011.

• Elliott, Carl. Better than well: American medicine meets the American dream. New York, NY. W.W. Norton, 2003.

• Elliott, Carl. White coat, black hat: Adventures on the dark side of medicine. Boston, MA. Beacon Press, 2010.

• Faloon, William. Pharmocracy: How corrupt deals and misguided medical regulations are bankrupting America and what to do about it. Mount Jackson, VA. Praktikos Books 2011.

• Fox, Stephen R. The mirror makers: a history of American advertising and its creators. New York, NY. Morrow, 1984.

• Goldacre, Ben. Bad pharma: How drug companies mislead doctors and harm patients. New York, NY. Faber and Faber, 2012.

• Goldacre, Ben. Bad science: Quacks, hacks, and big pharma flacks. New York, NY. Faber and Faber, 2008.

• Goldacre, Ben. I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that. London, UK. Fourth Estate, 2014.

• Goozner, Merrill. The $800 million pill: the truth behind the cost of new drugs. Berkeley, CA. University of California Press, 2004.

• Gotzsche, Peter. Deadly medicines and organized crime: How big pharma has corrupted healthcare. London, UK. Radcliffe Publishing, 2013.

• Greene, Jeremy A. Prescribing by numbers: drugs and the definition of disease. Baltimore, MD. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

• Healy, David. Pharmageddon. Berkeley, LA. University of California Press, 2012.

• Healy, David. The antidepressant era. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press, 1997.

• Healy, David. Let them eat Prozac: the unhealthy relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and depression. New York, NY. New York University Press, 2004.

• Hobereman, John. Testosterone dreams: Rejuvenation, aphrodesia, doping. Berkeley, CA. University of California Press, 2005.

• Kassirer, Jerome P. On the take: how America’s complicity with big business can endanger your health. New York, NY. Oxford University Press, 2005.

• Kilbourne, Jean. Can’t buy my love: how advertising changes the way we think and feel. New York, NY. Simon & Schuster, 1999.

• Kilbourne, Jean. Deadly persuasion: why women and girls must fight the addictive power of advertising. New York, NY. Free Press, 1999.

• Moynihan, Ray. Selling sickness: how the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies are turning us all into patients. New York, NY. Nation Books, 2005.

• Moynihan, Ray & Mintzes, Barbara. Sex, lies and pharmaceuticals: How drug companies plan to profit from female sexual dysfunction. Vancouver, CA. Greystone Books, 2010.

• Mundy, Alicia. Dispensing with the truth: the victims, the drug companies, and the dramatic story behind the battle over Fen-Phen. New York, NY. St. Martin’s Press, 2001.

• Payer, Lynn. Medicine and culture: varieties of treatment in the United States, England, West Germany, and France. New York, NY. Henry Holt and Company, 1996.

• Reidy, Jamie. Hard sell: the evolution of a Viagra salesman. Kansas City, MO. Andrews McMeel, 2005.

• Rodwin, Marc. Medicine, money & morals: PhysiciansÕ conflicts of interest. Oxford, UK. Oxford University Press, 1993.

• Tone, Andrea & Watkins, Elizabeth Siegel. Medicating modern America: Prescription drugs in history. New York, NY. New York University Press, 2007.

• Washburn, Jennifer. University, Inc.: the corporate corruption of American higher education. New York, NY. Basic Books, 2005.

• Washington, Harriet. Deadly monopolies: The shocking corporate takeover of life itself—and the consequences for your health and our medical future. New York, NY. Doubleday, 2011.

• Worst Pills, Best Pills

• The Medical Letter Bi-weekly publication on evidence-based evaluations of FDA-approved drugs. 

• Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) FREE subscription to the electronic version of this CDC report

• Prescriber's Letter 

• FDA MEDWATCH Contains warning letters about drugs and instructions on how to report an adverse event. Join the e-mail list.

• FDA Drug Safety Newsletter (subscribe) Provides postmarketing information to healthcare professionals on new drug safety information and adverse events.

• Therapeutics Letter (subscribe) Independent publication on rational drug therapy published by the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia.

• Australian Prescriber Independent review of drugs and therapeutics published by the National Prescribing Service.

• Prescrire International Independent review of drugs. Free newsletter subscription here.

Blogs 

Pharmalot at STAT; original Pharmalot blog (last entry from November 2015)

GoozNews Substack; original GoozNews [Internet Archive] (last entry November 2012)

Gary Schwitzer's Health News Review Substack

Health Care Renewal

Medical Evidence Blog

Pharma Marketing Network

FiercePharma

Inactive and Archived blogs

Peter Rost’s Question Authority (last entry from February 2016)

Clinical Psych Blog (last entry from February 2011)

Carlat Psychiatry Blog (last entry September 2017)

Health News Review [Internet Archive]

PostScript [Internet Archive]

Hooked: Ethics, Medicine, and Pharma (last entry from September 2014)

The Number Needed to Treat (TheNNT.com) conveys the benefit and harm of therapies and is an excellent resource for both physicians and patients.

Open Payments Data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services View payments made by drug and medical device companies to physicians, physician assistants, advanced practice nurses and teaching hospitals. Search by individual provider, teaching hospital, or company. Last updated in June 2023, next update in January 2024.

Drug Industry Document Archive (DIDA) Internal industry documents and other papers concerning the marketing of drugs from the University of California, San Francisco.

WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines Every two years this list of essential medicines is updated.

Minnesota Board of Pharmacy Payments to Practitioners Documents [Internet Archive]

The International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment

• CRD Archive of HTA Database

• New International HTA Database

AccessRx is a project of the DC Department of Health, and the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, which analyzes gifts made by the pharmaceutical industry to physicians and other health care providers in the District of Columbia. Below, please find pdfs of past three special reports on the project's findings: 

• 2022: Expenditure Patterns in the First Year of the Covid-19 Pandemic 

• 2019: Large Payments to Health Care Providers in the District of Columbia, 2014-2018 

• 2018: The Marketing and Prescribing of Anticoagulants in the District of Columbia

Pharmaceutical Marketing Expenditures in the District of Columbia

WHO Drug Information

US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) Clinical Practice Update for 2022.

Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs A public information project administered by Consumers Union.

American Medical Student Association (AMSA) PharmFree Scorecard 2016 | [Internet Archive of 2016 Scorecard] Conflict of interest policies at academic medical centers.

 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) – February 2011 Full Report on Prescription Drugs: Trends in Usual and Customary Prices for Commonly Used Drugs

Why Not the Best? Results from the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, 2011. The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.

Why Not the Best? Results from the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, 2008. The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.

Kaiser Family Foundation Prescription Drug Trends Fact Sheet. (May 2010)

Report of the AAMC Task Force on Industry Funding of Medical Education to the AAMC Executive Council (June 2008) [Direct PDF]

Conflict of Interest in medical education.

AHRQ Compendia for Coverage of Off-Label Uses of Drugs and Biologics in an Anticancer Chemotherapeutic Regimen (2007) A review of drug compendia.

Branding the Cure. [Internet Archive] 2006. Consumers International.

Turning Medicine Into Snake Oil: How Pharmaceutical Marketers Put Patients At Risk. New Jersey Public Interest Research Group Law and Policy Center. May 2006.

CSE’s White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications. [Internet Archive] Editorial Policy Committee (2005-2006), Council of Science Editors (CSE). [Internet Archive] 2006.

Educational Initiatives For Medical and Pharmacy Students About Drug Promotion: an International Cross-sectional Survey [Internet Archive] Mintzes B. World Health Organization (WHO) and Health Action International (HAI), 2005.

Big Pharma Behaving Badly: A Survey of Selected Class Action Lawsuits Against Drug Companies, Fourth Edition. [Internet Archive] January 2005. Prepared for Families USA by Patrick Cafferty, Miller Faucher, and Cafferty, LLP. More at Families USA Prescription Drug Publications. [Internet Archive]

Drug promotion: what we know, what we have yet to learn: Reviews of materials in the WHO/HAI database on drug promotion. EDM Research Series no. 32 (102 pages) [Internet Archive] Norris P, Herxheimer A, Lexchin J, Mansfield P. World Health Organization (WHO) and Health Action International (HAI), 2004.

Lifting the Veil of Secrecy: Corporate Support for Health and Environmental Professional Associations, Charities, and Industry Front Groups. A 2003 report from Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) | September 8, 2003 Update

Getting Doctors to Say Yes to Drugs: The Cost and Quality Impact of Drug Company Marketing to Physicians. [Internet Archive] Millenson, ML.

Profiting from Pain: Where Prescription Dollars Go. [Internet Archive] July 2002. Families USA Publication 02-105. More at Families USA Prescription Drug Publications. [Internet Archive]

Kaiser Family Foundation National Survey of Physicians Part II: Doctors and Prescription Drugs, March 2002. Additional Findings were released in 2006.

Blurring the Boundaries. Mintzes B., 1998. Health Action International (HAI).