The frustration of watching for over 20 years as rip offs disguised under a prescription label went out the pharmacy door has built up like lava under Krakatoa and I'm finally calling it.... Pharmaceutical manufacturers never hesitate to tell you prescription prices are so high because of the staggering costs involved in researching and developing new medicines. The truth is though, that while it does cost big bucks to bring a truly innovative product to market, pharmacy shelves are also stocked with blatant rip offs. Tiny manipulations of prescription strengths that make them no more effective but incredibly more expensive. Combination pills of meds that have been available separately for years treated as if they were a new product. A topical foam that contains the same product as a cream but is priced over a hundred dollars more. A glaucoma medicine that is repackaged with a little brush and sold, for more money, as an eyelash thickener. Even, in some cases, medicines that are less effective or even more dangerous than cheaper alternatives, but are promoted as the next new breakthrough. My plan with this book is to help empower you to become a smarter health care consumer by arming you with facts the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want you to know. Remember, your goal as a patient is to get better, while the goal of the drug company is to collect each and every last dollar it can. Sometimes those goals coincide, but many times they do not, so it can pay handsomely to do some research before getting that prescription filled. I wrote this book to give you an idea what could be at stake. Good luck.

During her two decades at The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell had a front-row seat on the appalling spectacle of the pharmaceutical industry. She watched drug companies stray from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs and instead become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control over their own fortunes. She saw them gain nearly limitless influence over medical research, education, and how doctors do their jobs. She sympathized as the American public, particularly the elderly, struggled and increasingly failed to meet spiraling prescription drug prices. Now, in this bold, hard-hitting new book, Dr. Angell exposes the shocking truth of what the pharmaceutical industry has become–and argues for essential, long-overdue change. Currently Americans spend a staggering $200 billion each year on prescription drugs. As Dr. Angell powerfully demonstrates, claims that high drug prices are necessary to fund research and development are unfounded: The truth is that drug companies funnel the bulk of their resources into the marketing of products of dubious benefit. Meanwhile, as profits soar, the companies brazenly use their wealth and power to push their agenda through Congress, the FDA, and academic medical centers. Zeroing in on hugely successful drugs like AZT (the first drug to treat HIV/AIDS), Taxol (the best-selling cancer drug in history), and the blockbuster allergy drug Claritin, Dr. Angell demonstrates exactly how new products are brought to market. Drug companies, she shows, routinely rely on publicly funded institutions for their basic research; they rig clinical trials to make their products look better than they are; and they use their legions of lawyers to stretch out government-granted exclusive marketing rights for years. They also flood the market with copycat drugs that cost a lot more than the drugs they mimic but are no more effective. The American pharmaceutical industry needs to be saved, mainly from itself, and Dr. Angell proposes a program of vital reforms, which includes restoring impartiality to clinical research and severing the ties between drug companies and medical education. Written with fierce passion and substantiated with in-depth research, The Truth About the Drug Companies is a searing indictment of an industry that has spun out of control.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * New York Times Notable Book * Best Book of the Year: New York Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, Science Friday With a new postscript by the author From an award-winning journalist, an explosive narrative investigation of the generic drug boom that reveals fraud and life-threatening dangers on a global scale—The Jungle for pharmaceuticals Many have hailed the widespread use of generic drugs as one of the most important public-health developments of the twenty-first century. Today, almost 90 percent of our pharmaceutical market is comprised of generics, the majority of which are manufactured overseas. We have been reassured by our doctors, our pharmacists and our regulators that generic drugs are identical to their brand-name counterparts, just less expensive. But is this really true? Katherine Eban’s Bottle of Lies exposes the deceit behind generic-drug manufacturing—and the attendant risks for global health. Drawing on exclusive accounts from whistleblowers and regulators, as well as thousands of pages of confidential FDA documents, Eban reveals an industry where fraud is rampant, companies routinely falsify data, and executives circumvent almost every principle of safe manufacturing to minimize cost and maximize profit, confident in their ability to fool inspectors. Meanwhile, patients unwittingly consume medicine with unpredictable and dangerous effects. The story of generic drugs is truly global. It connects middle America to China, India, sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil, and represents the ultimate litmus test of globalization: what are the risks of moving drug manufacturing offshore, and are they worth the savings? A decade-long investigation with international sweep, high-stakes brinkmanship and big money at its core, Bottle of Lies reveals how the world’s greatest public-health innovation has become one of its most astonishing swindles.

Recently discovered and never before published, these two short novels were written in the early 1970s, at the beginning of Acker's writing career. Published together here, they reveal a young writer on a literary romp, imposing an original, sexy, and subversive world view that is unmistakably Acker.

LIFE IS A RIP OFF: THE COMPLETE BOOK is 404 pages and 12 months of record reviews--one record a day, every day, for one year. Yes, John "Inzane" Olson aka Inzane Johnny of Wolf Eyes aka American Tapes did that. And he reviewed everything from death metal demo cassettes to the Staples Singers' gospel. Enter into the OLZONE and find out about music you've never known, bands from places that you've never heard, and then read his review of classic rock cornerstones such as KANSAS. Reading LRIP will make you re-realize why blues is relevant, why every punk band in America matters, why jazz is good for the heart, and metal will always ride by your side. "To write music op-ed this good, you have to tap the primordial sap sack, to butterfly stroke the ancient ooze of tune begatment, cave dwell with the knuckle draggers, scratch symbols into the dirt with the freaks and make it rain. He do and it did."--Henry Rollins "[Life is a Rip Off] is the best way [John Olson] can add another cubist layer to the sound and visuality he's already presented for the last twenty or so years. He's sharing something the people who don't know him personally don't get enough of--his textual, syntactical brain, stained as it is with dollar-store spray paint."-- Ben Hell Hall, Detroit artist. "When John agreed to write a record review a day, back in 20xx, I wasn't too keen on the idea. Not because I didn't think he could do it - but that I knew he would do it, even if it became a years-long all-encompassing obsessive task."--Tovah Olson, The Dead Machines. "[John Olson] didn't just introduce me to different worlds, the man introduced me to entire universes."--Bryan Ramirez, Killertrees Records

A hilarious and surprising tale of a child's bargaining with the Tooth Fairy. Joey is disappointed when the Tooth Fairy leaves him only fifty cents for his first tooth. Joey tries to bargain with the Tooth Fairy to no avail. The Tooth Fairy is a tough negotiator, and Joey learns a lot about the value of work, money, and savings before he loses his second tooth. 24 four-color illustrations.