Unhealthy Pharmaceutical Regulation / Health, Technology and Society (PDF)

Courtney Davis is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Kings College London, UK. Previously Director of the Centre for Corporate Accountability, she is author of Making Companies Safe.

John Abraham is Professor of Sociology at Kings College London, UK. Author of over 100 publications on pharmaceuticals in society, he was Special Expert Adviser to the UK House of Commons Health Select Committee Inquiry into the influence of the pharmaceutical industry (2005).

"Precisely 50 years have passed since the first truly modern system of medicines regulation came into operation in The Netherlands. That is a good reason to take stock of what drug regulation has achieved in half a century, and where it has perhaps failed to serve society optimally. Courtney Davis and John Abraham have now done precisely that, in a thoughtful and independent study of developments on both sides of the Atlantic. Their findings make clear the extent to which empty rhetoric from every direction (emanating most loudly from industry's puppet organizations and from neo-liberal politicians or think tanks) has been allowed to dominate the debate. This book is so solidly documented that it does not make for easy reading, but that reading will be rewarded. If in the coming years society is to rethink these matters, to identify truly valid interests in the pharmaceutical field, and to strike a fair balance betweenthem, with the genuine needs of the individual consumer and patient ever in the foreground,

this is the way to do it."- Graham Dukes, External Professor of Drug Policy Studies, University of Oslo, Norway

"Davis and Abraham provide new insights into how the neo-liberal regime that has developed since the 1980s has profoundly biased the way the Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency deal with drug approvals and safety, to the detriment of the patients they are supposed to be protecting. The drug companies, not the people who need effective and safe medicines, are now the primary clients of drug regulators. However, Davis and Abraham do not stop with just criticizing the current situation; they offer concrete steps that can be taken to restore drug regulation to what should be its true function. This book should be the starting point for anyone interested in understanding the forces that are shaping the medicines we take.- Joel Lexchin, Professor of Health Policy, York University, Canada

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