Preview of Strong Medicine Summary:

Strong Medicine offers a close look at the functioning of a huge pharmaceutical industry. The author presents precise information about how drugs are developed, tested, approved, and promoted and about how public opinion and the industry itself react to its mistakes and its successes. Although he stresses the drug industry's humanitarian contributions, he also explores a range of abuses, as when the lure of vast profits sometimes obscures a concern for public safety. In the course of the story, the employees of FeldingRoth Pharmaceuticals face a series of problems and crises which are taken as typical of the industry. In particular, they must worry about the testing, release and recall of the drug Montayne, developed to alleviate morning sickness in pregnant women but found to be, like Thalidomide, deadly for unborn children.

The novel also deals with several issues of topical interest. Primary among...