The United States is the only advanced country that permits the pharmaceutical industry to charge exactly what the market will bear, whatever it wants.
Marcia AngellYou see that the people who are drawn to alternative medicine are often fairly healthy and they go to alternative medicine for what I call the 'symptoms of life.' Fatigue, joint pains, inability to concentrate, perhaps, the kinds of things that anyone over twenty-five gets at some point.
Marcia AngellIn economic terms, health care is a highly successful industry - profitable, growing, and virtually recession-proof - but it's a massive burden on the rest of the economy.
Marcia AngellThe use of psychoactive drugs - including both antidepressants and antipsychotics - has exploded...[yet] 'the tally of those who are disabled...increased nearly two and a half times.
Marcia AngellConsider the clinicaltrials by which drugs are tested in human subjects.5 Before a new drug can enter the market, its manufacturer must sponsor clinicaltrials to show the Food and Drug Administration that the drug is safe and effective, usually as compared with a placebo or dummy pill. The results of all the trials (there may be many) are submitted to the FDA, and if one or two trials are positiveโthat is, they show effectiveness without serious riskโthe drug is usually approved, even if all the other trials are negative.
Marcia Angell