Bottle of Lies : : the Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom

Locations
Call Number: Adult Book / Nonfiction / Health & Fitness / General / Eban, Katherine, 615.1 Eb
On Shelf At: Malletts Creek Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Health & Fitness / General / Eban, Katherine	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Health & Fitness / General / Eban, Katherine	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	615.1 Eb	4-week checkout	Due 04-19-2024

Part I: Shifting ground. The man who saw further ; The gold rush ; A slum for the rich ; The language of quality ; Red flags -- Part II: India rises. Freedom fighters ; One dollar a day ; A clever way of doing things ; The assignment -- Part III: A cat-and-mouse business. The global cover-up ; Map of the world ; The pharaoh of pharma -- Part IV: Making a case. Out of the shadows ; "Do not give to FDA" ; "How big is the problem?" ; Diamond and ruby ; "You just don't get it" -- Part V: Detectives in the dark. Congress wakes up ; Solving for X ; A test of endurance ; A deep, dark well ; The $600 million jacket -- Part VI: The watershed. The light switch ; We are the champions ; Crashing files ; The ultimate testing laboratory -- Part VII: Reckonings. Flies too numerous to count ; Standing.
"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?" -- Dust jacket.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation
Table of Contents
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Absolutely fascinating, completely engrossing submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on June 12, 2021, 9:17pm An absolutely fascinating, utterly horrifying, completely engrossing book about everything you need to know but then wished you didn’t about generic drugs produced cheaply around the world. _Bottle of Lies_ tells the story of how the US drug market came to be regulated the way it is, how and why generics are a “thing,” and how several specific companies engaged in a years’ long company-wide campaign to fool the FDA into thinking that the company was in compliance with regulations. Even worse, since the drugs were NOT in compliance, they were sold (with varying levels of active ingredient, no knowledge of longevity, variances to how they dispersed over time in the body, and with all kinds of fillers and impurities) to different parts of the world based on where the ineffective drugs were more or less likely to be caught. Drugs to the US? The best of the bad stuff. Worst of the bad stuff? Sent to Africa. Other parts of the world fared differently based on inspections and regulations in between.

_Bottle of Lies_ reads like a story, not like an academic paper. There were a lot of people/characters, but I paid just a bit of attention and did not have any trouble keeping them straight because the author did such a good job placing everyone in context. It’s a 400 page book, and every time I had to set it down, I couldn’t wait to pick it back up. This will absolutely change my habits around generic medications.

Important, and highly recommended.

Scary Look at Drug Industry submitted by danzoia on August 14, 2023, 9:06am This book is frightening. Shows how generic drug makers often cut corners, and there is really not good oversight by the FDA. Auditors announce in advance when they visit these plants in low cost countries which give them time to clean up their act. Then they just go back to doing what they did before once auditors leave. Much more scary stuff inside this book.