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IMH Happenings

1/5/2007
Our Director, Dr. Howard Brody, recently published his new book which is entitled Hooked: Ethics, the Medical Profession, and the Pharmaceutical Industry. The book was published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

You can read further about Dr. Brody's new book on the Rowman & Littlefield Publishers website, http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com, or on Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Dependence-Pharmaceutical-Professional-Explorations/dp/0742552187/sr=11-1/qid=1168029726/ref=sr_11_1/104-0348183-8751172. The publishers website would not allow a link directly to the book but you can do a quick search for the title from their main page and it will take you to the book that way.

For decades, medical professionals have been betraying the public's trust by accepting various benefits from the pharmaceutical industry. Drug company representatives and doctors alike have promulgated creative rationalizations to portray this behavior positively, as if it really serves the interest of the public. In Hooked: Ethics, the Medical Profession, and the Pharmaceutical Industry, Howard Brody claims that we can neither understand the problem, nor propose helpful solutions until we fully recognize the many levels of activity that connect these two industries. Then, for real improvement to occur, the doctors themselves need to not only change their behavior, but also change how they view the actions of their peers and colleagues. We can pass laws and enact regulations, so that those physicians that do choose to focus on ethics won't be in an environment where they feel as if they are swimming against too strong a current to make meaningful change, but ultimately a profession has to take responsibility for its own integrity.

About the Author Howard Brody is Professor and Director for the Institute for the Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Brody was University Distinguished Professor of family practice, and philosophy at Michigan State University, where he also sat on the faculty of the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences; he served as director of the Center from 1985-2000. Dr. Brody completed his residency in family practice at the University of Virginia Medical Center. He received his MD from the College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University, in 1976, and his PhD in Philosophy, also from Michigan State University, in 1977. He currently sits on the board of the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities, and specializes in ethics and the doctor-patient relationship. He has authored five books, among them The Placebo Response: How You Can Release the Body's Inner Pharmacy for Better Health (HarperCollins, 2000), Stories of Sickness (Oxford, 2002), and The Healer's Power (Yale, 1993). Originally a native of Chicago, Dr. Brody and his wife now live in Galveston.

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