Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom
Written by Katherine Eban
Narrated by Katherine Eban
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
From an award-winning Fortune reporter, an explosive narrative investigation of the generic drug boom that reveals the life-threatening dangers posed by globalization—The Jungle for pharmaceuticals
The widespread use of generic drugs has been hailed as one of the most important public health developments of the twentieth century. Today, almost 90 percent of our pharmaceutical market is comprised of generics, the majority of which are manufactured overseas. We have been reassured by our pharmacists, our doctors, and our regulators that the generic and brand-name drugs are identical, generics just cheaper. But is this really true?
Katherine Eban’s Bottle of Lies exposes the widespread deceit behind generic drug manufacturing—creating terrifying risks for global health. Drawing on exclusive accounts from whistleblowers, inspectors, and regulators, as well as thousands of pages of confidential internal FDA documents, Eban reveals an industry where fraud is rampant, companies falsify data, and executives circumvent almost every principle of safe manufacturing to minimize cost and maximize profit. Meanwhile, patients unwittingly consume adulterated medicine with unpredictable and even life-threatening effects.
The story of generic drugs is truly global: it connects middle America to sub-Saharan Africa, China, India, and Brazil, and encompasses every market banking on the promise of a low-cost cure. Given that tens of millions of patients take drugs of dubious quality approved with fake data, the generics industry is the ultimate litmus test of globalization: what is the risk of moving drug manufacturing offshore, and is it worth the savings?
An investigation with international sweep, exotic settings, molecular mayhem, and big money at its core, Bottle of Lies reveals how the world’s greatest public-health innovation has become one of its most astonishing swindles.
Katherine Eban
Katherine Eban is a Rhodes Scholar with an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. She has been covering medical fraud and health care issues for The Nation, The New Republic, Playboy, The New Yorker, Vogue, Glamour, and the New York Times Magazine. She worked as an investigations reporter for the New York Times, the New York Observer, and has been a contributing editor to New York Magazine. She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn with her husband and Newfoundland puppy named Lola.
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Reviews for Bottle of Lies
109 ratings15 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You'll never look at generic drugs the same way again. Painstakingly researched, it is an engrossing and disturbing look at how the overseas generic drug industry got it start and how our own food and drug administration helped it to go terribly wrong. Fascinating!
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5India is so corrupt and so is the FDA. You'll never trust a generic pill again.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enlightening, comprehensive, and frightening. A must read for all Americans.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It is a shocking but absolutely necessary read for anyone who has ever depended upon generic medications to get better or to control pre-existing conditions.
It isn't your imagination that the efficacy and safety assurances of many of these drugs should be harshly scrutinized and evaluated.
Katherine Eban did a stellar job of pulling back the curtain that hides the dark and rotting underbelly of quality control, egregious sterility violations, counterfeiting, and bribery that permeates an industry that the wellness of the world's population must depend upon, often with horrifying and sometimes fatal results. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the best books I've ever read. I was shocked to learn of the rampant fraud throughout the international pharmaceutical industry. The author dives deep into the story from multiple angles, and by the end of the book you'll be questioning whether the FDA is there to protect the public or there to collect a paycheck.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Interesting, engaging and most importantly, very insightful.... Great book, highly recommended
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Although the pacing was a bit off it was very informative.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Well done and I think it is an impressive finding.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book is mind blowing and beautifully written. I can’t look at the generic pharmaceutical industry the same after this. It is a shame that this information is covered up and widely unknown.
Well worth the read and now on my list of favorite books. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It opened my eyes to these fraud practices of generic drug makers. This book is a stunning example of unending human greed. Profit triumphs everything.. I hope that more people read the fantastic and comprehensive reporting by Katherine Eban.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book actually scared me.
One little overlooked consequence of globalization and the generics boom is the move to overseas production of pharmaceuticals--in particular, India (though China is also a problem, but getting information is difficult). The FDA has historically been regarded as one of the strongest, if not the strongest, pharma regulators in the world, and manufacturers take it seriously. In the US, they have the power to conduct inspections without notice and with full access. For overseas facilities, they don't: notice is given. Pharma companies in the US, Canada, and Western Europe take safety and quality seriously. A growing number of our generics are manufactured outside the US and Western Europe, including injectable medications that are incredibly sensitive to contamination, and an even larger supply of raw ingredients comes from overseas.
Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers jumped on the opportunity to reverse engineer popular drugs and sell them in the US. Problem was, some of them faked their safety data and hid it from the FDA. Eventually, a whistleblower spilled the beans.
Eban traces the story of the generics boom, the laws and regulations that govern it, and in particular the story of Ranbaxy, which faked its data and went to great lengths to cover it up. The consequences were not just confined to the US, but to other countries. Ranbaxy had a hierarchy of liability: the US and Canada first, Africa last. When a scientist expressed concern over the quality of AIDS drugs Ranbaxy was supplying for the PEPFAR initiative, a top executive replied, "Who cares? It's just blacks dying."
I looked askance at my bottles of generic medicine after finishing. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Sensational journalism. Needs more science, less rhetoric.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Amazing book. Details problems with the globalization of generic prescription drugs and the role of the FDA. Questions the balance between competition, maximizing profits and health care.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fascinating book, a little repetitive in places, but that repetition is effective. A book that has made me incredibly angry. It should. It should make everyone angry, because that is the only way anything will ever change.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fascinating. And frightening.