Ethics and the business of biomedicine /

This book's topic is certainly timely. Particularly in the US, soaring costs, the injustice of having so many uninsured or underinsured inhabitants, and ethically deceptive drug company marketing tactics spark new threads in the heated debate over health care daily. Several of the 11 new articles here are by top bioethics and business ethics professionals. Many of the papers are about pharmaceutical industry practices, dealing with, for instance, the ethics of direct-to-consumer (DTC) and direct-to-physician (DTP) marketing, the use of disadvantaged populations in drug research, and the fairness and efficiency of patents. All articles are well written and loaded with statistics and empirical data along with philosophical argumentation. Not surprisingly, perhaps, most writers take the position that aggressive marketing and the free rein of corporate interests almost always are detrimental to health care systems throughout the world. Readers will learn much from this book. It would be excellent as a supplement to biomedical ethics courses, or as a main anthology for courses specifically focused on the intersection of business and bioethics. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, professionals/practitioners. P. Jenkins Marywood University