Overdosed America

THis is a very well written book. I am a Primary Care Physician but have increasing concern about the enormous ammount of tablets patients are taking with limited evidence as to the benefits that they will get. An example would be the treating mild to moderate hypertension will reduce you risk of stroke by about a third. However what this means is that 125 men would need to be treated for 5 years to prevent one stroke. Now this may well be what you would choose, but it seems much less impressive does it not? We need to engage patients much more in the benfits and risks of preventative treatment. Remember that all pills have side effects. Finding out what is right for you may well just start here in this clear well written non polemical book. i could not recommend it more highly to patients or doctors alike. Both groups will be hugely informed by reading this book

“Probably as much as 75% of the medicine of sickness is unnecessary and its cost can be avoided.”– Dr. Ghislaine Lanctot, Author Of The Medical Mafia" One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine."- William Osler, M.D.This is my first glance at Dr. Abramson's work, and it did not disappoint.Overdo$ed America - The Broken Promise Of American Medicine By John Abramson M.D., does an exceptional job of eviscerating what the conventional medical establishment has been doing for an extremely long time: misrepresenting medical data at the expense of the American populace's health and well being.Abramson's foray into the heart of the medical establishment is something to behold. He does what nigh no one within his field does, or even the mainstream establishment does, which is hone in on duplicitous dealings of the Medical Industrial Complex in many ways.From manipulation of statistics, to scientific information that is highly inaccurate, no stone is unturned in this journey into the web of medical deception.The foray of Dr. Abramson is reminiscent of the work of Dr. Brogan in her landmark book, A Mind Of Your Own - The Truth About Depression, and Dr. Breggin in his phenomenal book Toxic Psychiatry.Both of those books destroy any semblance of reality within the psychiatric/medical establishment. Abramson did the same in respect to prescription drugs, and in an extraordinary way.The data collated within the doors of this book help individuals see the many intricacies that are unknown today.Not only did the FDA allow in 1981 the drug companies to change the direct-to-consumer [DTC] advertising rules, allowing the pharmaceuticals to advertise to people, but they also further loosened the restrictions in 1997, opening the flood gates.Therein began the normalization of advertising and drugs within the American landscape, which happens to be illegal in every country in the world except two: New Zealand and the United States. That fact should give incisive folks pause.Furthermore, the author delves into the pharmaceutical disasters that were Paxil, Celebrex, Vioxx, HRT, and more, but he doesn't stop there. Abramson also deconstructs how the supply side of medical care functions, and how it often increases costs, but not the benefits of health.Another noteworthy point is the fact that the cholesterol guidelines are delved into at length, as the author covers many of the issues plaguing those guidelines.There is a lot more covered by the author, and he also mentions some sensible solutions that can be carried out by individuals and the establishment.All in all, this is a top-down analysis of a great portion of the issues plaguing conventional medicine, and why American's health care costs have increased, but health has remained stagnant.If you care about your health, or that of a loved one, society, solutions, and/or the intricacies of medicine et al., consider this compulsory reading. The fact people don't know about this information is costing lives, in the hundreds of thousands, and that's not an exaggeration.Preventable medical mistakes are the third leading cause of death in the United States, at over 400,000 deaths a year. This book harpoons directly into the heart of the matter, and not knowing this information in the age of information is akin to willingly choosing ignorance when solutions are at hand in various modalities.Kindest Regards,Zy MarquiezTheBreakaway.wordpress.comP.S. If you wish to know others Doctors doing high quality work, please look into Dr. Ghislaine Lanctot, author of [The Medical Mafia], Dr. Kelly Broggan [author of A Mind Of Your Own - The Truth About Depression], Dr. Peter Breggin [author of Toxic Psychiatry], Dr. Russell Blaylock [author of Natural Strategies For Cancer Patients], Dr. Suzanne Humphries [author of Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines & The Forgotten History]. There are also many others. Those are just the ones first came to mind.

Thank God for Dr. Abramson! He is telling it like it is. We lament the high cost of health care and the high cost of prescription drugs and yet no one seems to knows why costs are skyrocketing. Read this book and find out why.You go to the doctor and he/she tells you to take this medication. Do you question why? Do you know what you're taking? What is it going to do to you/for you? I would venture to say that 90% of people in the U.S. today do not know or care about the medications they are taking. Why? Because the doctor gave them the prescription and that's all they need to know.Well, it's not all you need to know. That medication could be making you even more ill. That medication may be adding to your physician's bottom line but not doing a thing or worse yet doing a lot of untoward things to your internal systems/organs.I offer this example from the book, "Then just one week after the book [he is referring to his book "Overdosed America"] hit the stores, Merck stunned the medical world with its announcement that it was withdrawing it's $2.5 billion a year arthritis remedy Vioxx from the market. This was the biggest drug recall ever (about one out of ten American adults had taken Vioxx in the previous five years). Initially Merck was credited with acting responsibly and decisively when it learned that its blockbuster drug doubled the risk of serious cardiovascular problems in a study designed to determine whether Vioxx reduces the recurrence of non-cancerous polyps of the colon. But the real news is not that Merck had done the right thing in September 2004 (which it had). Rather it was that American doctors had prescribed $7 billion worth of Vioxx, causing an estimated tens of thousands of heart attacks and deaths, after both Merck and the FDA had become aware (in 2000) that Vioxx was significantly more dangerous and no more effective than an older and far less costly anti-inflammatory drug, naproxen (Aleve)."This book is filled with chapter and verse about what is wrong with the American system of healthcare. It echoes the concerns of books like, "The Truth About The Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What To Do About It" by Maria Angell, M.D. Dr. Angell was the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for over 20 years. She also has first hand knowledge of how Big Pharma is controlling our lives and our health. Also, read the book, "On the Take" by Dr. Jerome Kassirer. Dr. Kassirer was editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for over 8 years. These books and many others like them corroborate Dr. Abramson's findings in "Overdosed America."This book may frighten and/or anger some people but that may be just what it takes to wake people up.One more example from "Overdosed America"; " In other words, the drug companies had maintained sales of largely ineffective drugs by not publishing results from their own studies showing that the new antidepressants increase suicidal behavior in youngsters, thus leaving doctors uninformed about these negative studies. When confronted with this situation, the FDA's reaction was first to protect the drug companies rather than our children."Yes, I highly recommend reading Dr. Abramson's book, "Overdosed America" Read it and tell your friends to read it. The information Dr. Abramson so courageously shares in this book could mean the difference between life and death of your loved ones.

Dr. Abramson writes how prescription drugs are being pushed to fix a lot of problems that could be solved or at least abated with lifestyle changes like exercise, diet, eliminating tobacco, and moderate alcohol use. Type 2 Diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, strokes, depression, obesity, and even some cancers can be effected much more positively with exercise and diet than with expensive and marginally helpful drugs.The book shows why statin drugs aren't for everybody, Celebrex and Vioxx are no better than naproxen only much more expensive, osteoporosis drugs can cause more problems than they help in some patients, antidepressants (Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, etc.) are no more effective than placebos and in fact cause more suicides, cheap water pills work as well as expensive diuretics for blood pressure control, there is still much research to be done on cholesterol (total, LDL, HDL) control, and why we need to stop drug companies from contributing to FDA and NIH (fox in the henhouse problem).He describes how the drug companies are increasingly influential in spinning drug trials to their benefit or burying results not to their benefit, how doctors can't trust medical journal reports because of manipulation of data or wholesale ignoring of important facts, how doctors are pressured by time and patient demands to prescribe the latest advertised wonder med that is expensive and questionably effective.His goal is that patients realize how important a smaller and better diet along with a couple hours of exercise a week can have a huge impact on their quality of life and fewer drugs. The problem is that most people know what they need to do but really enjoy eating and hate to exercise - day to day living, and changing habits are much harder to accomplish than just knowing it.

This book has been reprinted three times. That should make you think. The first quote of the book is from Theodore Roosevelt. " Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and is theefore our fight and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions." Dr. John Abramson, MD is nobody's dummy. He is a Harvard graduate and is on the clinical faculty of Harvard Medical School where he teaches primary care medicine. This is a brave and outspoken book that says, " We the American public have been had." We have swallowed the bitter pills, made enormous amounts of money to drug companies that not only do not " heal us" but in fact " kill us". We have watched TV so long ( " Ask your doctor"...) That now the doctors themselves are feeling the pressure to prescribe what the doctors know are insufficient medicines." I told her many of my patients were being drawn in by the growing number of drug ads and medical news storeis; ...when I tried to focus patients on interventions proved safe and effective, many were reacting as if I were puposely trying to withold the best treatment...." So Dr. Abramson tried to convince his patients with " research". ... " I turned my full attention to these issues". What he found was that the drug companies, the universities, the FDA, and the established medical publications were all in bed together. " it was becoming clear that the train's brakes were failing. ...there was no effective counterbalance to the influenc of commerically sponsored research". ..." over the next two and a half years of " researching the research" ... a scandal in medical science that is at least the equivalent of any of the recent corporate scandals that have shaken American's confidence in the integrity of the corporate and financial worlds. Rigging medical studies, misreprenstening research results pulished in even the most influential medical journals and witholding the findings of the whole studies that don't come out in a sponsor's favor have all become the accepted norm...." When it comes to the " Myth of American Medical Excellence". Dr. Abramson shows us the data, " In 2004, health expenditure in the US are projected to exceed $6100 for every man, woman and child. .....The US spends more than twice as much per person on health care that other industrialized nations. Even taking into account our higher per-person gross domestic product, the US spends 42% more on health care than would be expected, given health care in the other OECD nation. The excess Spendins in the US is like a yearoly tax of more that $1800 on every citizen ( And still the US is the ONLY country that does not provide universal health insurance leaving more than 42 million Americans uninsured." This book is about a physican, a Harvard graduate and a practicing general practioner who has seen the elephant in the room. He has come out on a limb so to speak as other doctors who take handouts and perks from drug companies have found that it is to difficult to resist the pressure from both patients and the drug companies. He adds, " Why don't doctors just say no to providing medical care that is not supported by evidence that meets the highest standards." " Part of the problem is that there is no reliable way to differenitate between care that is necessary and beneficial and care that has been " pushed by the financial incentives"... In conclusion, Dr. Abramson states, " I hope I have motivated some readers to be more regular about excercise, adopt a healthier diet, stop smoking and think..."It is our job as people and patients to be responsible for our own health. Trusting blindly is always dangerous and the case of our health...it can kill you, keep you ill, and make you broke, homeless and confused. Thank you Dr. Abramson for writing this book. I hope more people will take heed to your " common sense" approach.