Big pharma — paper tiger

[摘要] In The Constant Gardener, ‘now a major motion picture’, John Le Carre puts the drug companies in the position that the evil empire of the Soviet Union occupied in his Cold War novels.1 Perfidious big pharma is revealed to be testing dangerous drugs on impoverished Africans, suppressing information about their lethal side-effects, and murdering whistleblowers. Le Carre's convoluted tale is presented as ‘a magnificent exploration of the dark side of unbridled capitalism’. It is remarkable that this preposterous depiction of the pharmaceutical industry should strike such a popular chord. Yet, while drug companies claim that they have made a major contribution to health and welfare with a range of new medications, many accept the view that big pharma is a ruthless and corrupt form of capitalist enterprise.

[学科分类] 卫生学