A startling and important exposé on the state of medicine, research,
and healthcare today by the Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of the
American Cancer Society
How We Do Harm exposes the underbelly of healthcare today--the
overtreatment of the rich, the under treatment of the poor, the
financial conflicts of interest that determine the care that physicians'
provide, insurance companies that don't demand the best (or even the
least expensive) care, and pharmaceutical companies concerned with
selling drugs, regardless of whether they improve health or do harm.
Dr. Otis Brawley is the chief medical and scientific officer of The
American Cancer Society, an oncologist with a dazzling clinical,
research, and policy career. How We Do Harm pulls back the curtain on
how medicine is really practiced in America. Brawley tells of doctors
who select treatment based on payment they will receive, rather than on
demonstrated scientific results; hospitals and pharmaceutical companies
that seek out patients to treat even if they are not actually ill (but
as long as their insurance will pay); a public primed to swallow the
latest pill, no matter the cost; and rising healthcare costs for
unnecessary--and often unproven--treatments that we all pay for. Brawley
calls for rational healthcare, healthcare drawn from results-based,
scientifically justifiable treatments, and not just the peddling of hot
new drugs.
Brawley's personal history - from a childhood in the gang-ridden streets
of black Detroit, to the green hallways of Grady Memorial Hospital, the
largest public hospital in the U.S., to the boardrooms of The American
Cancer Society--results in a passionate view of medicine and the
politics of illness in America - and a deep understanding of healthcare
today. How We Do Harm is his well-reasoned manifesto for change.
