We know much less about human health than you might think, and even less about how to go about improving it. Since many otherwise intelligent and well-informed people place blind faith in physicians, pharmacists, pharmaceuticals, and in press stories about health issues, this book performs an exceedingly important public service.
Marketing has unfortunately replaced science in the world of pharmacy, portraying drugs as being vastly more advantageous than they really are.
The most insidious thing about drug commercials on TV is that they are wildly successful in creating a narrative that health is completely dependent on pharmaceuticals, and that prevention of disease is beyond our reach or understanding. The reality is that the majority of prescriptions that pharmacists fill are for preventable diseases of modern civilization.
Most people are unaware of the extent to which pharmacists have been bamboozled by the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmacists have consequently been largely complicit in legitimizing Big Pharma's delusion of a quick fix pill-for-every-ill.
The author is not aware of any other pharmacist who has written a devastating book-length expose' of the pill business from the perspective of a pharmacist.
Pill Nation is an update of the author's previous book: The Shocking Truth About Pharmacy: A Pharmacist Reveals All the Disturbing Secrets
An abbreviated list of chapters in Pill Nation:
1. Why are so many pharmacists disillusioned?
2. Some pharmacists have serious doubts about many of the pills they dispense
3. Ten reasons why doctors prescribe pills so eagerly
4. Why our medical system's obsession with pills made us poorly prepared for a pandemic
5. Are these 10 common drug therapies contrary to Mother Nature?
6. Ten reasons pharmacists feel pressured to be positive about pills
7. Drug advertisements, scary side effects and cognitive dissonance
8. Pharmacists' attitudes toward side effects
9. Why are pharmacists silent about generic drug quality?
10. Who makes more mistakes: bank tellers or pharmacists?
11. Pharmacy technicians can be devastated when they make a mistake
12. Do pharmacists like pills more than prevention?
13. Can commonly prescribed drugs actually cause cancer?
14. Have pharmacists become cheerleaders for drugs?
15. Are all "chronic conditions" really chronic?
16. Pharma's distorted view of health
17. The biggest myth of modern medicine
18. Critically important information you'll never see in drug advertisements
19. Why pharmacy often feels like a religion
20. A close encounter with two major medication mistakes
21. My thoughts after filling 800,000 prescriptions
22. Eighteen pharmacists discuss their most memorable medication mistakes
23. A pharmacist asks: "Did I choose the wrong profession?"
24. How often do drug side effects occur in the real world?
25. Why aren't pharmacists critical of pharmaceuticals?
26. Does it matter that most pharmaceuticals are highly synthetic substances?
27. Is Amazon Pharmacy an existential threat to your local drug store?
28. A pharmacist's case for banning drug commercials from TV
29. Potentially fatal side effects from highly advertised drugs
30. Which planet do these brand names come from?
31. Should pharmacists switch from medication dispensing to medication counseling?
32. Why the future of pharmacy as a profession is doubtful