Library Journal Review: A Must Buy!

Here's the review from the Library Journal:

The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs
Goozner, Merrill. . Univ. of California. Mar. 2004. c.296p. bibliog. index. ISBN 0-520-23945-8. $24.95. MED
American expenditures on prescription drugs doubled between 1990 and 2000 and currently account for close to ten percent of total healthcare costs. Concerns about availability to seniors and the poor have led many to question these high costs, which pharmaceutical companies have always justified as necessary to spur the creation of new and better drugs. In this well-researched book, Goozner, former chief economics correspondent at the Chicago Tribune, disputes these claims. He chronicles the actual clinical process by which new drugs come into being, from basic scientific research on disease processes conducted at universities and government labs to the synthesis of new chemicals. Unlike Katharine Greider's The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers - which addresses issues of advertising, marketing, and other questionable practices - Goozner's more scholarly study reveals how the pharmaceutical companies step in to take their profits (hence driving up prices) once the original government-funded research is done. Recommended for larger public libraries and academic collections in public health, medicine, and public policy. - Eris Weaver, Redwood Health Lib., Petaluma, CA