The most recommended books about medication

Science journalist Sally Adee brings alive the fact that yes, we are electric.

If we could truly understand the way our bodies work electrically and not just chemically, it could open the doors to a revolution in medicine. We would look at the brain and the nervous system in a whole different light; pharmaceuticals would be replaced by electroceuticals; and we might sleep better and live longer.  

I recommend this book because I enjoyed going on this journey through history to the future!

If you think that medical journals published by respected medical societies are full of good science, think again.

For me, Abramson’s Sickening nailed the case for a conclusion that the net effect of the many hundreds of medical journals published here and around the world is to subtract from the sum of human medical knowledge.

Abramson, as an expert witness in criminal and civil cases against drug companies, draws in part on subpoenaed documents to expose how medical science, as part of the entire medical-industrial complex, is corrupted from start to finish by the drug industry’s funding of most clinical trials, their control over the data analysis, and even their ghost-writing of articles submitted to journals.

New and disturbing was the withholding of clinical trials’ raw data from journals’ peer reviewers. Instead, they get biased summaries bearing drug manufacturers’ fingerprints.

In All That’s Left To Say, dual timelines braid threads of a mystery together in a way that allowed me to contrast Hannah then and now and wonder not just about the mystery Hannah’s trying to solve, but about how she became the master sleuth she thinks she needs to be to get answers.

This contrast, as much as the mystery, drew me into the story and had me turning pages every time we jumped between past and present. Of course, the enemies-to-friends-to-lovers romance also helped. How Lord imbued a single tie-straightening scene with more sexual tension than most kissing scenes might be the biggest mystery in this book.

The improvised communities that ring the cities of Latin America have a bad reputation as squatter towns. Not so fast.

Look beyond the surface and you will see communities with strong social ties, systems of self-government, and residents who are as committed to their neighborhood as any American suburbanite. Janice Perlman has spent decades studying the Rio de Janeiro that lies behind its beaches, and gives a clear-eyed look at some of the self-built communities on the city’s edge.

Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: a fungus. The death count: 100 and rising. These facts set the stage for a true-crime thriller by investigative journalist Jason Dearen, and it has the makings of a horror movie. There’s scientific hubris, sketchy ethics, a cover-up, and a monster, too: a slimy, sticky, fungal mold that infected patients and began eating their brains alive. It’s riveting, packed with information about how fungal spores managed to contaminate a medical supply chain, and frankly hard to put down. I have done my share of forensic research, and never have I encountered killer fungus before; I consider this an unmissable book.

Autonomous is one of those books you finish reading and then just want to sit and stare off into space for a while.

The story takes place in a future world where Big Pharma runs basically the entire show. The main character is a drug pirate, fabricating expensive drugs to provide them to the population on the cheap… but when one of her fabbed drugs causes some horrible side effects, it kicks off a domino effect of chaos and death.

Other characters include a military agent sent to hunt our drug pirate down and his robotic, AI-powered partner. Every character is riddled with absolutely deal-breaking flaws, so if you’re looking for heroes, you’ve come to the wrong place. The story raises questions about morality, freedom, AI, and more. I can’t recommend it enough! 

Determined to escape the clutches of his sinister mafia boss, ruthless Ash Lynx stumbles across a dying man bearing a strange drug and the codename ‘Banana Fish’. As bloodshed looms over New York City, Ash meets Eiji, a gentle Japanese photographer. Together, they attempt to uncover the mystery behind Banana Fish, as danger stalks ever closer to their fledgling friendship. Dark and brutal, Banana Fish is centered on the trauma of Ash’s past as a child forced into prostitution. Handled with respect and care, the author offers Ash a chance to heal through the compassionate nature of a true friend, warding off the demons plaguing Ash’s memories. Survivors are rarely given the opportunity to be as complex and conflicted, so Ash is a character who remains of deep personal importance.

The New Yorker writer and author of the New York Times bestseller Say Anything—unveils the secrets and lies of the Sackler family, the billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma. Keefe is a master of narrative storytelling and an incredible researcher, and this book made me want to scream at the greed and callousness of the Sacklers. Many see the family as downright evil, and understandably so. Since Keefe’s book came out, a number of museums and organizations have tried to distance themselves from the Sacklers. Keefe also testified before a congressional committee that aimed to hold the Sacklers accountable for the opioid crisis. Keefe poured through hundreds of thousands of documents—including messages sent from one family member to another—as part of his definitive investigation of the Sacklers. I admire reporters like Keefe who are willing to do the tedious work of scouring records.

A gut-wrenching but provokingly beautiful story that highlights an illness that isn’t spoken much about in fiction.

The relationship between Stella and Will is such a heartbreakingly warming story that gives the reader a new-found understanding of how cystic fibrosis can impact an individual's life. I enjoy reading stories involving new, important conversations that need to be had, especially on topics we don’t often see in novels.

I think it’s important for writing to help spread awareness. It’s something that I myself want to do more in my own work. 

I find Angell’s The Truth About the Drug Companies extremely valuable for teaching students about how the pharmaceutical industry translates high profits into power resources to protect and increase those profits over time.

The former New England Journal of Medicine editor exposed how drug companies enlist politicians, the FDA, and medical academia for their cause. And armies of lawyers to extend monopoly marketing rights for years.

It was my first introduction to how they spend more on marketing than research, much of that on “copy-cat” drugs of dubious superiority to ones with expired patents.

As a tax (and high drug price) payer, I was disturbed to learn how they use government funds for basic research and then rig and spin their reporting of clinical studies to inflate their products’ therapeutic value and underplay their risks.