April Focus

摘要

‘Are we all the dupes of the pharmaceutical industry?’. The review of Malcolm Kendrick's The Great Cholesterol Con on page 336 argues that we are all being duped, but doesn't go so far as to direct the blame at the pharmaceutical industry. However, the reviewer feels that the book should ‘make us all uneasy’. Take, for example, the comments made about the lack of benefit in primary prevention; benefit is only proved for men with established ischaemic heart disease, and even for them it only amounts to a few days for each year of taking the drugs. On page 332 Michael Weingarten writes about the sanctity of life and challenges the whole idea that a few extra days of life are what matter. You may disagree with the argument, or the religious tradition from which it stems (and I should declare an interest here). However the general line — that the value of a life cannot be measured only by its length — will have strong echoes for many readers if they think about it not in relation to their patients but to their families, or indeed themselves.