Prescriptions, Patients, Profits, Perils and Pro-people Choices: Be Drug Smart, Slash Costs, Be Safer, Be Healthier

Smart consumers can significantly reduce drug-related problems and costs, and even live healthier lives by doing so. Robinson's exposé, Prescriptions, Patients, Profits, Perils and Pro-People Choices, explains it all. The author explains how prescription prices are built from incremental costs of drug discovery through dosage form design, clinical trials, manufacturing, marketing and promotion, drug distribution through the drug supply chain to the ultimate consumer, and dispensing and medication therapy management services at the pharmacy to ensure healthy treatment outcomes. How powerful anti-consumer, anti-competitive industry forces impact consumer drug choices, prices and safety is illustrated. In the process, the reader is guided through a complex maze of drug discovery, regulatory approval of drugs and supplements, drug benefit versus risk considerations, widespread medication errors, other medication-related problems, and security of the nation's drug supply system. The author maintains a focus on promoting prescription drug effectiveness, safety, unimpeded availability, and affordable consumer costs. The interrelationships between adverse drug events, modifiable self-inflicted drug-related problems like prescription drug overuse and abuse, and rampart drug non-compliance, and the problems of consumer drug and health literacy are clearly explained. Less expensive alternatives to brand-name drugs are discussed, including the thrifty generics solution and a self-care option, combining healthy lifestyles with responsible use of prescription drugs, non-prescription drugs, wisely selected dietary and herbal supplements, and some proven homeopathic remedies.