Bottle of Lies
From an award-winning journalist, an explosive narrative investigation of the generic drug boom that reveals fraud and life-threatening dangers on a global scale—The Jungle for pharmaceuticals Many have hailed the widespread use of generic drugs as one of the most important public-health developments of the twenty-first century. Today, almost 90 percent of our pharmaceutical market is comprised of generics, the majority of which are manufactured overseas. We have been reassured by our doctors, our pharmacists and our regulators that generic drugs are identical to their brand-name counterparts, just less expensive. But is this really true? Katherine Eban’s Bottle of Lies exposes the deceit behind generic-drug manufacturing—and the attendant risks for global health. Drawing on exclusive accounts from whistleblowers and regulators, as well as thousands of pages of confidential FDA documents, Eban reveals an industry where fraud is rampant, companies routinely falsify data, and executives circumvent almost every principle of safe manufacturing to minimize cost and maximize profit, confident in their ability to fool inspectors. Meanwhile, patients unwittingly consume medicine with unpredictable and dangerous effects. The story of generic drugs is truly global. It connects middle America to China, India, sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil, and represents the ultimate litmus test of globalization: what are the risks of moving drug manufacturing offshore, and are they worth the savings?
Stats for nerds
14recommend
23mentions
19people
2019–2025years
74% recommend22% neutral4% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > Do you think the _process_ of making music is the important part, or the final sounds that are produced?
Pharmaceuticals are regulated not just by testing the end product but by regulating the entire production process[1]. How this came to be has an interesting story but I believe that it's essentially the correct way to do things.
Saying that process is irrelevant, that only the end product matters is a very persuasive idea but the problem comes when it's time to validate the end product. Any test you can perform on a black box can only show the presence or absence of a specific problem, never the absence of problems.
“Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!” - Dijkstra
[1] If you're interested in how this regulatory structure has failed to regulate international drug manufacturers, check out "Bottle of Lies" by Katherine Eban.
- For more on this, I highly recommend Bottle of Lies by Katherine Eban. Fantastically written book that goes deep on this topic and will absolutely horrify you about everything related to the manufacture of generic drugs.
- >They could put a literal carbon copy of FDA standards into their regulations, but it's meaningless without enforcement.
This is funny because the USA itself doesn't do proper inspections.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Eban
See the book "Bottle of Lies".
- They were never really properly investigated.
Eban's "Bottle of Lies" book is shocking: https://www.katherineeban.com/bottleoflies
Peter Attia on Youtube also did an investigation on this.
If you're lucky your drugs have the right amount of the active ingredient. If you're unlucky they have chalk dust in them. If you're even more unlucky, they have carcinogens in them.
- I only have time to listen to audiobooks so I hope this list is not too basic.
On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything by Nate Silver
The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto by Jonathan Taplin
The Value of Others by Orion Taraban
Rinsed: From Cartels to Crypto: How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World's Deadliest Crooks by Geoff White
Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality by Venki Ramakrishnan
Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter by Zoe Schiffer
Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom by Katherine Eban
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor
Hijacking Bitcoin: The Hidden History of BTC by Roger Ver
Go Woke, Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America by Charles Gasparino
The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets by Thomas R Cech
and my book of the year
Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health by Casey Means M D
- Some non fiction books that thoroughly convinced me of their thesis with their rigor:
1. Bottle of Lies - Eban
2. Capital in the Twenty-First Century - Piketty. I will admit this was difficult to push through but by the end of it you really appreciate how he takes so many different angles to prove his point. Type 2 fun for sure.
Fiction books with great style:
1. A Deepness in the Sky - Vinge. -- This book is so mind blowingly exceptional I am shocked I don't see it recommended more on these types of questions. Vinge absolutely nails the micro and macro structure of the book. The build up, introduction to and revealing of mysteries, are all perfectly timed to keep you hanging onto every word.
2. All the Light We Cannot See - Doerr
3. Cloud Atlas - Mitchell
