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Bottle of Lies

the Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom
May 31, 2019StarGladiator rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
*********************** 50 STARRED Review **************************** ____________________________________________________________________________________ Prior to reading this amazing book by a genuine professional investigative journalist, Katherine Eban, I read some harsh criticism of it. After finishing this extraordinary achievement of Ms. Eban, one can only surmise her critics to be corrupt swine on the payroll of Big Pharma! There are several portions of this book, a large and dense read, I was already familiar with, most notably the horrible debacle with Baxter Healthcare. This resulted in many deaths and pointed to the greedy vile corruption of American, Chinese and Indian corporations. Dr. Janet Woodcock of the FDA believed, like the lacking Alan Greenspan, that corporations are capable of policing themselves!? Of course, there are individual heroes to be found: Dinesh Thakur, Karen Takahashi, Peter Baker, David Nelson, Altaf Lal, et cetera, and the author --- Katherine Eban, for her splendid research, investigations and compilation of these events. [Although honest and patriotic individuals were to be found at the FDA, those corrupt types there were truly shocking! IMHO, the Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations essentially gave the go-ahead to Chinese and Indian companies to poison the American people - - with the U.S.Attorney's Office as execrable and useless as ever!] What is truly depressing about this book is that - - had author Katherine Eban had the time, money and energy - - she could just as easily written a book ten times this size! [Sidebar: The case of FDA chemist, Charles Chang is interesting and one can see historic parallels in the history of corruption: D.H. Byrd, owner of the Texas School Book Depository when JFK was assassinated, was supposed to have obtained his original wealth by having a crooked planted agent in the Texas office where oil lease claims were filed - - rejecting valid claim filings, then tipping off Byrd who would successfully file on the same previously rejected claims. Thomas Edison, the prolific inventor, was purported to have a similar situation at the US Patent Office as newspaper stories around that period noted a pattern of complaints against a Mr. Fink of the Patent Office, who rejected previous patent applications that would end up later filed by Edison!]