Pharmageddon

David Healy’s comprehensive argument against the pharmaceuticalisation of medicine is an indictment of problems in health care that are leading to a growing number of deaths and disabilities.

Healy, who was the first to draw attention to the now well-publicised suicide-inducing side effects of many antidepressants, attributes the current state of affairs to three key factors: product rather than process patents on drugs, the classification of certain drugs as prescription-only, and industry-controlled drug trials. These developments have tied the survival of pharmaceutical companies to the development of blockbuster drugs, so that they must overhype benefits and deny real hazards.

In the original edition of Pharmageddon, Healy proposed a solution to these problems: the creation of a free, independent drug safety website. RISK.org is that site. Launched in October 2012, RiSK.org aims at empowering people by providing information about drugs and their side effects that is not available elsewhere, a personalised report to take to a doctor or pharmacist to facilitate better treatment, and heatmaps and other aids to show exactly what’s happening to other people taking the same drug both locally and globally.