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Chasing Medical Miracles: The Promise and Perils of Clinical Trials
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Product Description
As O’Meara chronicles, twentieth-century medical trials have led to epic advances in health care, from asthma inhalers and insulin pumps to heart valves and pacemakers. And yet, although regulations safeguard against grossly unethical tests, significant problems are still associated with how clinical trials are carried out and reported. For example, despite eight clinical trials for Vioxx before the FDA approved it in 1998 for use as a painkiller, Merck took it off the market in 2004, too late for the eighty-eight thousand Americans who suffered heart attacks while taking Vioxx and the thirty-eight thousand who died.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #380068 in Books
- Published on: 2009-06-16
- Released on: 2009-06-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.00" h x 5.75" w x 8.60" l, .81 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 272 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780802716965
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
- Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Enjoy this bracing tour through the history, horror, and headaches of clinical trials, described by a guide with both a detached delivery and knowledgeable perspective. Former Newsday and Baltimore Sun reporter O'Meara, a Type I diabetic, signed up for a trial offering a possible cure, so he may be more than a little invested in how trials work. But his self-interest is a compelling element as he surveys a $24-billion-a-year industry that affects the lives of 20 million Americans. His investigation briskly sails through the interests that spark clinical trials, the money that pays for them and the bonanza of cash and/or equipment and medications for developing countries where researchers find it cheaper to recruit trial subjects. Best and most sweetly, however, the book delves into the human guinea pigs, such as gene therapy trial participant whose death raised questions about government oversight and the self-interest of the lead researcher. O'Meara presents lessons from a medical front that offers something more important than success or failure—hope. I'm still able to say, 'At least I tried.' O'Meara notes. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Readers who assume that the trials only occur at academic medical centers will be surprised by the author’s findings. As they multiply and grow wildly expensive—up to $500 million for a single drug—pharmaceutical companies are hiring clinical-research organizations, profit-making enterprises that recruit subjects, pay them and perform studies in their own facilities. These organizations continue to migrate overseas to save money and escape FDA oversight… [O’Meara] does a capable job of revealing alarming problems that must be addressed.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Chasing Medical Miracles tells the truth about the byzantine world of clinical trials. O’Meara exposes the ethics of medical research both in the U.S. and abroad. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how new medicines are developed.”—Joe Graedon, M.S., and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D., authors of The People’s Pharmacy
“This travelogue of ‘the most dangerous part of medical discovery’ moves from O’Meara’s own experience as a research subject—ranging from terror to euphoria—to a broader exploration of the ethics and economics of clinical trials. He describes a landscape populated by brave and often desperate patients, whose heroism is integral to finding tomorrow’s cures.”—Robin Marantz Henig, author of Pandora’s Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution
“In the ethically murky world of clinical trials, Alex O’Meara’s book is an illumination. Whether probing the use of Third World people to test U.S. drugs, or revealing that the goal of clinical trials is not to cure anyone but to obtain data, Chasing Medical Miracles is educational in a valuable and troubling way.”—Stephen P. Kiernan, author of Last Rights: Rescuing the End of Life from the Medical System
About the Author
Customer Reviews
The first book to offer a behind-the-scenes view of clinical trails and how they operate and are funded
As a diabetic author Alex O'Meara had given up hope for a cure and for thirty years had to take two or more shots of insulin daily. But in 2004 he signed up for a clinical trial involving an experimental transplant - and his experience led to an investigation of the industry in CHASING MEDICAL MIRACLES; THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF CLINICAL TRIALS. It's the first book to offer a behind-the-scenes view of clinical trails and how they operate and are funded, and is key for any medical student and consumer who wishes to understand their organization and importance.
272 Pages Looking for Something To Do
Twenty-million people in the U.S. are enrolled in clinical trials, up 300% in the last ten years. Some volunteer to get free medical screenings, others for cash, and a few for altruistic reasons.
I feel bad for the author, burdened with chronic diabetes and hoping for improved health. O'Meara attempts to improve his health through participation in a pertinent trial. Unfortunately, the benefits soon faded, along with his marriage, leaving him nearly at his initial medical starting point.
Further, it is easy to understand why a clinical trial participant would expand involvement to include writing about the topic. Unfortunately, O'Meara lacks both the high-level perspective and understanding of basic statistics/human variability to well handle the assignment. Instead, he (and we) rely largely on his own experience and anecdotes from other situations, and the result lacks impact, credibility, and direction.
Much better alternatives on health care innovation in general include Marci Angell's "The Truth About Drug Companies," and John Abramson's "Overdosed America."
Nicely Balanced Coverage of a Little Known Part of Modern Medicine
Chasing Medical Miracles
Nicely Balanced Coverage of a Little Known Part of Modern Medicine, October 14, 2009
Our local public library had put Chasing Medical Miracles out in their new books display just as I was finishing testing for eligibility in a double blind study. The drug I had a 50-50 chance of getting (the other chance would be a powerless placebo) holds the potential for delaying or eliminating the possibility of developing breast cancer. My risk level is above average as I have a sister currently battling the disease. Obviously, a book discussing "promises and perils of clinical trials" was an immediate draw.
Though it may sound strange to say about a somewhat academic book with 27 pages of footnotes and a 9 page index, reading it was a pleasure. O'Meara provides some solid research along with personal anecdotes, a very readable combination. Best of all, he did not come off as a shill for the many corporations, hospitals, clinics and individual researchers and physicians involved in research, nor did he pen a strident screed against these same interests. Instead, there is a wealth of information about how studies are conducted, some surprising--and, yes, sometimes disturbing--facts about the globalization of studies, and an overall picture of how important ongoing research of this type is to continued medical discoveries and treatment.
Overall--an important read for anyone interested in medical science, as well as for any of us contemplating entering a trial.
Oh, and yes, I did sign up for the trial that will involve taking either a placebo or a rather powerful drug for the next five years. I will not be compensated for participation in the study, but the drugs and ongoing follow up tests related to the study will be paid for. Small price to pay if it will help others who might be saved from the rigors of treatment my sister continues to face as her cancer continues to metastisize.
