"The inside story of how Big Pharma's relentless pursuit of ever-higher profits corrupts medical knowledge, misleading doctors, misdirecting American health care, and harming our health"--Book jacket flap.

Reveals the tactics of people who influence medical doctors' health care advice to patients and parents for such conditions as chronic pain, autism, Lyme disease, multiple sclerosis, frozen shoulder syndrome, cancer, and others. Examines chiropractic and other complementary and alternative health care treatment options, and discusses the case brought against the American Medical Association by a chiropractor.

This book moves the conversation about prescription drugs to where it hits home: our own bodies. How, Critser asks, has "big pharma" created a nation of pharmaceutical tribes, each with its own unique beliefs, taboos, and brand loyalties? How have powerful chemical compounds for chronic diseases, once controlled by physicians, become substances we feel entitled to, whether we need them or not? How did we come to hate drug companies but love their...