Pills That Work, Pills That Don't: A Family Guide to Personal Pharmacology

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.com Review Just because a drug has been approved by America's Food and Drug Administration doesn't mean it's the best or most appropriate drug for any given patient. And just because a doctor has prescribed a normally effective drug doesn't mean a patient is going to use it according to the directions. Drug mistakes--whether by the physician or patient--lead to 140,000 deaths each year, according to Gideon Bosker, and cost consumers and insurance companies billions. Pills That Work, Pills That Don't is tough on both sides of the equation (it exposes, for example, the myth that generic drugs are as good as brand-name equivalents still under patent), and offers an objective system for ranking drugs. This system allows you to decide for yourself whether your doctor is giving you the best drugs for your condition, or merely the cheapest ones. Read more From the Inside Flap tury approaches, better living through pharmacology has become a way of life. Approximately two thirds of all physician visits result in a drug prescription. In 1996 alone, physicians wrote 2.8 billion prescriptions--about eight prescriptions for every person in this country. New superdrugs and forms of treatment generate front-page coverage and have become household names, but how much do we really know about these new drugs, their effectiveness, their life-prolonging properties, and their potentially deadly interactions and side effects? How can we protect ourselves and our families, enhance our quality of life, and participate in the heal-or-harm choices that determine whether our prescribed medications will help or hinder us, whether they will add years to our life or cut it short?<br><br>With these issues in clear focus, Pills That Work, Pills That Don't is the ultimate family guide to personal pharmacology and medication use. Part medical exposé, part pharmacy home companion, this rev Read more About the Author Gideon Bosker, M.D., is a widely published clinical scholar, educator, geriatric specialist, editor, and lecturer who holds faculty appointments at both Oregon Health Sciences University and the Yale University School of Medicine. Author of Pharmatecture: Minimizing Medications to Maximize Results, he is editor-in-chief of The Manual of Emergency Medicine Therapeutics, The Quick Consult Manual of Primary Care Medicine, and Emergency Medicine Reports®. He has presented his work to more than 1,000 hospitals and health plans countrywide. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Read more