Vital Signs & Fool's Review Overdosed America : The Broken Promise of American Medicine Title:Overdosed America : The Broken Promise of American Medicine List Price $24.95 Format Book Date 2004 Pros: Eye opening look at the evolution of American medicine. Should be required reading by every medical student or resident. Don't belive everything you hear from the drug companies and the medical journals out there! Fascinating insider look! Also incredibly well timed given recent revelations in the drug approval process Cons: Can be slightly techinical, best if you know a bit about medicine. Content Usefullness Coolness Overall

102 minutes The fight to Survive in the Twin Towers


First Aid for the USMLE

Overdosed America : The Broken Promise of American Medicine is a fantastic insider's look at the way American medicine is conducted, and despite the claims of many that the US is #1 in healthcare. This book should be required reading for all medical residents and medical students (as well as attendings!) The book chronicles the "journey" by one family practice physician and his common experiences that led him to quit the practice of medicine. Part one is the first 5 chapters that contains the basic premise for the book. Bascially Dr. Abramson tells the all too common experience of the patients who complain of minor back pain and demand an MRI. Or those patients who have seen too many commercials on TV and request the "Purple Pill" when they have a stomachache.

We learn that even the top medical journals are not 100% reliable and believable. Even in the New England Journal of Medicine or Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). You always have to think twice when it comes to reading the asbtracts you come across. Who would have thought the important cardiovascular risks of Vioxx and Celebrex would have been brushed aside by the most respected medical journals in America. And what is MORE surprising is how timely this book is. In fact it was published BEFORE the VIOXX recall by Merck!

In Part 2 of Overdosed America, we learn just how entwined the pharmaceutical industry and the "reps" are influencing the American prescribing and dispensing habits. So much of medical education is dominated by the reps. Even the most well regarded experts in subspecialty fields are often on the speakers panels by the drug companies. While stopping short of a conspiracy theory, one must question any bias of a report when many of the top experts are also receving huge sums of money from the drugs they are recommending.

And while the American medical guidelines today focus on medications and labs, "state of the art" procedures, how many of these have really been proven to be superior. Why are the most important aspects of cardiovascular health (Diet and Exercise) mentioned in a small sidelight when compared to the multi-million dollar drugs like Lipitor? And who would realize that Vioxx and Celebrex were never proven to be superior in terms of pain control even compared to plain old ibuprofen? Given all the advertising money, we'd have assumed they were wonder drugs!

More alarming are some of the other well adhered to guidelines regarding osteoporosis and the treatment of this "bone disease." How can guidelines be set to be such that by definition a % of otherwise healthy women have a bone disease? How can you compare the bones of healthy older people to those of young women in their prime, then label a large portion of the women as having "bone disease?" And by the way, some studies actually showed an increase in fracture rate on medications like Fosamax!

In Overdosed America we're also shown the reality that American medicine really isn't #1. We are #1 in spending money on healthcare, but not # in longevity, NICU survival rates, and other things we've gotten accustomed to assuming we were the best at.

In summary Dr. Abhramson gives us a deep look at how closely big medical companies are intwined with the education of physicians, consumer advertising, the practice of medicine in America, and even the approval process by the FDA of the drugs they are selling. This book will make any doctor think twice about blindly giving out the medication samples they have in their offices, and more importantly, prescribing those drugs just because of the "data" presented by the drug reps.