I recently interviewed Lawrence Golbom, author of Not Safe As Prescribed.
Rosenberg: I found Not Safe as Prescribed to be a page turner. You captured the Pharma marketing apparatus from creating new “diseases,” bribing doctors and duping the FDA to phony patient groups, misleading research and the revolving doors between government officials and industry. You also really showed the connection to today’s heroin epidemic. Did you have to do a lot of research to get so many details right?
Golbom: Well, really the facts are out there. For seven and a half years I hosted a radio show called Prescription Addiction Radio and we had, as guests, Congressmen, medical experts, addiction experts, policy people, family members and affected patients who all exposed these practices. I am also a pharmacist by profession. In Not Safe as Prescribed, I simply tried to fill in what I imagined drug executives, the people behind these actions, were saying behind the scenes. I never dreamed I would write a book, but in the U.S. our growing drug culture for both legal and illegal drugs is affecting every community, person, family member or a friend. Everybody knows somebody struggling from too many drugs. That was my motivation.
