Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre

We all feel uncomfortable about the role of profit in healthcare, we all have a vague notion that the global $600bn pharmaceutical industry is somehow evil and untrustworthy, but that sense rarely goes beyond a flaky, undifferentiated new age worldview. Bad Pharma puts real flesh on those bones, revealing the rigged evidence used by drug companies. Bad information means bad treatment decisions, which means patients suffer and die: there is no climactic moment of villainy, but drugs are used which are overpriced, less effective, and have more side effects. There are five cheap, easy things we can do to fix the problem. Bad Pharma takes a big dirty secret out into the open, and will provide a single focus for concerns people have both inside and outside medicine.