Key messages in the book include: US life expectancy drops Reversing the trend of the past century, life expectancy in the US has already dropped compared to other advanced countries. Still, Healy's contrarian streak and sharpness make this a disturbing, well-documented indictment that echoes many others in recent years, and one worth heeding. Healy's new book Pharmageddon is the story of a tragedy.

But he seems contrarian in opposing chronic disease management because it provides drug companies the opportunity for long-term sales of drugs that manage, but do not cure, a condition. He is particularly incisive on how the drug industry distorts medical care by, say, encouraging the use of statins like Lipitor rather than advising patients to lose weight. It will make a real contribution toward healing our sick system of pharmaceutical-driven medicine and helping doctors provide better care for their patients. He takes particular aim at the outsourcing to private companies of clinical drug trials, once the domain of the National Institutes of Health and academics and now a $30 billion industry. Pharmageddonis Healys most important book to date. Healy chronicles the rise of blockbuster drugs like Prozac and Vioxx and how drug companies hyped them while downplaying their hazards. 'We are quite literally taking drugs to save the lives of companies who have a greater interest in the vitality of the diseases they market drugs for than in our well-being,' argues British psychiatrist Healy (Let Them Eat Prozac) in this scathing critique of the $900 billion global pharmaceutical industry.

Pharmageddon by David Healy