Chasing Medical Miracles: The Promise and Perils of Clinical TrialsJournalist Alex O'Meara is one of the more than twenty million Americans enrolled in a clinical trial—three times as many people as a decade ago. Indeed, clinical trials have become a $24 billion industry that is reshaping every aspect of health-care development and delivery in the United States and around the world. As O'Meara chronicles, twentieth-century medical trials have led to epic advances in health care, from asthma inhalers and insulin pumps to heart valves and pacemakers. And yet, although regulations safeguard against grossly unethical tests, significant problems are still associated with how clinical trials are carried out and reported. For example, despite eight clinical trials for Vioxx before the FDA approved it in 1998 for use as a painkiller, Merck took it off the market in 2004, too late for the eighty-eight thousand Americans who suffered heart attacks while taking Vioxx and the thirty-eight thousand who died. Chasing Medical Miracles is the first book to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the complicated world of clinical trials, revealing how a multibillion-dollar industry of private companies conducting them with little oversight has taken root and quietly become a major part of the American medical establishment. Whether you are participating in a clinical trial, considering that option, or interested in our medical system, Alex O'Meara's ground-breaking book is essential reading. |
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CHASING MEDICAL MIRACLES: The Promise and Perils of Clinical Trails
User Review - KirkusA harsh, firsthand look at clinical research.To cure his diabetes, freelance journalist O'Meara underwent an experimental pancreatic islet-cell transplant. The procedure didn't work, and the ... Read full review
Chasing Medical Miracles: The Promise and Perils of Clinical Trials
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictAfter entering a clinical trial for diabetes in which pancreas islet cells are transplanted into diabetes patients, O'Meara, a journalist and diabetic with hypoglycemic unawareness, chronicles not ... Read full review
Bibliographic information
| Title | Chasing Medical Miracles: The Promise and Perils of Clinical Trials |
| Author | Alex O'Meara |
| Edition | reprint |
| Publisher | Walker, 2009 |
| ISBN | 0802716962, 9780802716965 |
| Length | 263 pages |
| Subjects | › Health & Fitness / General Health & Fitness / Health Care Issues Medical / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |