White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine »

Carl Elliott is a professor at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Believer, and on Slate.com. He is the author or editor of six previous books, including Better Than Well, Prozac as a Way of Life, The Last Physician, and A Philosophical Disease. Elliott lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Over the last twenty-five years, medicine and consumerism have been on an unchecked collision course, but, until now, the fallout from their impact has yet to be fully uncovered. A writer for The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, Carl Elliott ventures into the uncharted dark side of medicine, shining a light on the series of social and legislative changes that have sacrificed old-style doctoring to the values of consumer capitalism. Along the way, he introduces us to the often shifty characters who work the production line in Big Pharma: from the professional guinea pigs who test-pilot new drugs and the ghostwriters who pen “scientific” articles for drug manufacturers to the PR specialists who manufacture “news” bulletins. We meet the drug reps who will do practically anything to make quota in an ever-expanding arms race of pharmaceutical gift-giving; the “thought leaders” who travel the world to enlighten the medical community about the wonders of the latest release; even, finally, the ethicists who oversee all that commercialized medicine has to offer from their pharma-funded perches.
 
Taking the pulse of the medical community today, Elliott discovers the culture of deception that has become so institutionalized many people do not even see it as a problem. Head-turning stories and a rogue’s gallery of colorful characters become his springboard for exploring larger ethical issues surrounding money. Are there certain things that should not be bought and sold? In what ways do the ethics of business clash with the ethics of medical care? And what is wrong with medical consumerism anyway? Elliott asks all these questions and more as he examines the underbelly of medicine.

The New York Times - Abigail Zuger

"Adventures on the dark side of medicine —now that sounds like a lot of fun. A few juicy stories about black-market organs, fingerprint erasure, murder and mayhem in the I.C.U. would make a welcome change from the usual humdrum stuff of hospital and clinic, where the big events are a drug that doesn't work properly, or a visit from a pharmaceutical salesman that screws up the entire afternoon schedule. But no: In Dr. Carl Elliott's survey of all that is shifty in modern medicine, those humdrum events are exactly what make up medicine's dark side. And, indeed, Dr. Elliott's entertaining and extremely readable essays will have you convinced that in comparison to the shenanigans that go into the creation of a single prescription pill, fingerprint erasure might actually be a little dull. After all, what is more sinister than the dubious mechanics of the ordinary, the sausage factory behind the breakfast special?

Introduction

Chapter One The Guinea Pigs 1

Chapter Two The Ghosts 25

Chapter Three The Detail Men 51

Chapter Four The Thought Leaders 75

Chapter Five The Flacks 109

Chapter Six The Ethicists 139

Coda 173

Acknowledgments 176

Notes 178

Index 195