Ben Goldacre is a doctor, writer, broadcaster and academic who specialises in unpicking dodgy scientific claims from drug companies, newspapers, government reports, PR people and quacks. His first book, Bad Science, reached Number One in the non-fiction charts, sold over 400,000 copies in the UK alone, and has been translated into 25 languages. He is 38 and lives in London.
`This is a book to make you enraged - properly, bone-shakingly furious - because it's about how big business puts profits over patient welfare, allows people to die because they don't want to disclose damning research evidence, and the tricks they play to make sure doctors do not have all the evidence when it comes to appraising whether a drug really works or not. A work of brilliance.' Max Pemberton, Daily Telegraph `This is a brilliant piece of work' Evening Standard, William Leith `This is an important book. Ben Goldacre is angry, and by the time you put `Bad Pharma' down, you should be too.' New Statesman `Nailing the compromise between too much detail and too little, Goldacre's brilliantly enraging study unpeels how the pharmaceutical giants routinely misrepresent science in their quest for profit.' Sunday Telegraph `What keeps you turning its pages is the accessibility of Goldacre's writing ... his genuine, indignant passion, his careful gathering of evidence and his use of stories, some of them personal, which bring the book to life.' Luisia Dilner, Guardian `This is a book that deserves to be widely read, because anyone who does read it cannot help feeling both uncomfortable and angry.' Economist `'Bad Pharma' will confirm his status as a thorn in the side of the medical Establishment - Goldacre's detailed research would be hard for any drug-company executive to contradict' Lois Rogers, Sunday Times