Seeing Sickness takes us inside the world of medical screening, where well-meaning practitioners and a profit-motivated industry offer to save our lives by exploiting our fears. Author Alan Cassels writes that promoters of screening overcompromise on its benefits and downplay its harms. If you're facing screening for breast or prostate cancer, high cholesterol, or low testosterone, someone is about to turn you into a patient. You need to ask yourself one question: Am I ready for all the things that could go wrong? [From back cover].
In this hard-hitting indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, Ray Moynihan and Allan Cassels show how drug companies are systematically using their dominating influence in the world of medical science, drug companies are working to widen the very boundaries that define illness. Mild problems are redefined as serious illness, and common complaints are labeled as medical conditions requiring drug treatments. Runny noses are now allergic rhinitis, PMS has become a psychiatric disorder, and hyperactive children have ADD. Selling Sickness reveals how expanding the boundaries of illness and lowering the threshold for treatments is creating millions of new patients and billions in new profits, in turn threatening to bankrupt national healthcare systems all over the world. This Canadian edition includes an introduction placing the issue in a Canadian context and describing why Canadians should be concerned about the problem.
Alan Cassels, co-author of the international bestseller "Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning Us All into Patients," returns to his favourite topic armed with outrageous humour and even more outrageous facts. As if Dr. Seuss had taken on an overmedicated, overdiagnosed culture, Alan Cassels offers up a great romp of disorders that go bump in the night, along with the industry-sponsored drugs marketed to make us better again. This illustrated, verse-form alphabet is not for the faint of heart at any age. It is, however, meticulously footnoted for theraputic use by consumers and health policy pundits of all shapes, sizes and chemical compositions. Take all twenty six letters of Cassels' alphabet with a dose of good old skeptical humour. Trust us, your health care policy will feel better in the morning.
Cassels offers a novel perspective on the part played by ideology in international relations over the past two centuries. His treatment is not restricted to the familiar totalitarian ideologies of communism and nazism, but also includes conservatism, liberalism and nationalism. The focus and emphasis given to ideology in an historical survey of such broad scope make this book unusual, and even controversial.
Alan Cassels offers a very superficial look at Mussolini's Italy, as the main part of the text is only 100 pages long, but he proves to have a solid grasp on all the scholarship in this area, which he presents in a lengthy bibliographical chapter at the end of the book. Much of that scholarship is either overly biased (focusing exclusively on the sillier elements of fascist spectacle and Mussolini's persona) or too apologetic, but Cassels manages to avoid either trap. Though written in 1985, "Fascist Italy" remains a decent introduction to the topic, and an excellent launching-off point for further study.
read this book and rage.' Clive Hamilton This remarkable investigation of the Sickness Industry is by two accomplished writers with an incredible story to tell.' Robyn Williams Three decades ago, the head of one of the world's leading drug companies made some remarkably candid comments. Wishing his company was more like the chewing gum maker Wrigley's, the chief executive of Merck said it had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people, and sell to everyone'. That dream now drives the marketing machinery of one of the most profitable industries on the planet. Using their dominating influence in medical science, drug companies are marketing fear in order to re-define human illness. In alliance with company-friendly doctors and sponsored patient groups, the all-powerful pharmaceutical industry is helping to widen the very definitions of disease, in order to expand markets for its drugs. With compelling clarity, Selling Sickness reveals how the ups and downs of daily life are becoming mental disorders, and common complaints are being transformed into frightening conditions. Shyness is Social Anxiety Disorder, PMS is a psychiatric illness called PMDD, and active children now have ADHD. As more and more ordinary people are turned into patients, drug companies move ever closer to that dream of selling to everyone.
In October 1922 Mussolini became the constitutional head of the Italian government; by late 1926 he had imposed a Fascist dictatorship on Italy. Professor Cassels, who argues that Mussolini's policies in the 1930s, the era of the Rome- Berlin axis, were foreshadowed by those of the 1920s, traces the stages by which Mussolini took control of Italy's foreign relations. Within the period 1922-1927, Mussolini, biased against democratic states, moved away from Italy's wartime alliance with Britain and France to a policy in favor of authoritarian force. France became the "moral rival"; and the Anglo-Italian entente, calculated to insure British good will, soon cooled as Mussolini sought to realize an Italian empire in the Mediterranean basin. Italy's career diplomats, who at first had tried to restrain Mussolini's adventurism, by 1927 were totally in the background. Mussolini emerges, therefore, as a more radical and far less conventional Italian statesman than he is usually depicted in other historical studies. Originally published in 1970. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The Cochrane Collaboration... rivals the Human Genome Project in its potential implications for modern medicine." - C. David Naylor, "The Lancet" "How can we have a rational health service if we don't know which of the things being done in it are useful and which are useless or possibly even harmful?" - Archie Cochrane, in "Effectiveness and Efficiency," 1972 What's hocus-pocus and what really works? In the complex, ever-evolving realm of modern medicine, how can you even begin to understand what's hocus-pocus and what really works? Best-selling author and researcher Alan Cassels answers with a single word: "Cochrane." Though largely unknown to the public, the Cochrane Collaboration is made up of more than 30,000 medical researchers and consumer representatives from more than 100 countries - unbiased experts and investigators who parse the scienceof modern health care and delve deep into the evidence (or lack thereof) to determine what works and what doesn't. In this frank, factual and entertaining volume, Cassels draws from more than 160 interviews to shed light on this international cadre of medical truth-seekers whose rigorous work helps prevent medical misjudgement, reduce unnecessary suffering, preserve lives and circumvent the squandering of billions of dollars. ABOUT THE AUTHOR - ALAN CASSELS Alan Cassels is a University of Victoria health policy researcher and a trusted media commentator on medical policy issues. He is the co-author of the internationally bestselling book "Selling Sickness," and a frequent contributor to magazines, newspapers and radio programs.
Alan Lomax (1915-2002) began working for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress in 1936, first as a special and temporary assistant, then as the permanent Assistant in Charge, starting in June 1937, until he left in late 1942. He recorded such important musicians as Woody Guthrie, Muddy Waters, Aunt Molly Jackson, and Jelly Roll Morton. A reading and examination of his letters from 1935 to 1945 reveal someone who led an extremely complex, fascinating, and creative life, mostly as a public employee. While Lomax is noted for his field recordings, these collected letters, many signed "Alan Lomax, Assistant in Charge," are a trove of information until now available only at the Library of Congress. They make it clear that Lomax was very interested in the commercial hillbilly, race, and even popular recordings of the 1920s and after. These letters serve as a way of understanding Lomax's public and private life during some of his most productive and significant years. Lomax was one of the most stimulating and influential cultural workers of the twentieth century. Here he speaks for himself through his voluminous correspondence.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.