Prescribing by Numbers: Drugs and the Definition of Disease - Paperback

by Jeremy A. Greene (Author)

Winner, 2009 Rachel Carson Prize, Society for the Social Studies of ScienceWinner, 2012 Edward Kremers Award, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a new model of chronic disease--diagnosed on the basis of numerical deviations rather than symptoms and treated on a preventive basis before any overt signs of illness develop--that arose in concert with a set of safe, effective, and highly marketable prescription drugs. In Prescribing by Numbers, physician-historian Jeremy A. Greene examines the mechanisms by which drugs and chronic disease categories define one another within medical research, clinical practice, and pharmaceutical marketing, and he explores how this interaction has profoundly altered the experience, politics, ethics, and economy of health in late-twentieth-century America.

Prescribing by Numbers highlights the complex historical role of pharmaceuticals in the transformation of disease categories. Greene narrates the expanding definition of the three principal cardiovascular risk factors--hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol--each intersecting with the career of a particular pharmaceutical agent. Drawing on documents from corporate archives and contemporary pharmaceutical marketing literature in concert with the clinical literature and the records of researchers, clinicians, and public health advocates, Greene produces a fascinating account of the expansion of the pharmaceutical treatment of chronic disease over the past fifty years.

While acknowledging the influence of pharmaceutical marketing on physicians, Greene avoids demonizing drug companies. Rather, his provocative and comprehensive analysis sheds light on the increasing presence of the subjectively healthy but highly medicated individual in the American medical landscape, suggesting how historical analysis can help to address the problems inherent in the program of pharmaceutical prevention.

Front Jacket

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a new model of chronic disease--diagnosed on the basis of numerical deviations rather than symptoms and treated on a preventive basis before any overt signs of illness develop--that arose in concert with a set of safe, effective, and highly marketable prescription drugs. Physician-historian Jeremy A. Greene examines the mechanisms by which drugs and chronic disease categories define one another within medical research, clinical practice, and pharmaceutical marketing, and he explores how this interaction has profoundly altered the experience, politics, ethics, and economy of health in late-twentieth-century America. His provocative analysis sheds light on the increasing presence of the subjectively healthy but highly medicated individual in the American medical landscape, suggesting how historical perspective can help to address the problems inherent in the program of pharmaceutical prevention.

Greene describes the relationship between advances in treatment, the incentives of manufacturers, and the effect on the public of increased attention to prevention . . . The risk-benefit trade-offs of the quantitative approach are complex, and Greene's historical revelations are timely.--New England Journal of Medicine

One of the best, and most significant, books published recently on the development of medical practice and the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. in the second half of the twentieth century.--Social History of Medicine

Greene focuses on the question of how public health priorities became closely aligned with the pharmaceutical industry's marketing practices . . . [and] offers a nuanced description of the development of 'therapeutics of risk reduction' with multiple lines of influence, subtle power shifts, and gains and losses for patients and physicians.--Chemical Heritage

A gripping story . . . Greene warns us in his superb book that things are not always as they are claimed.--Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

Jeremy A. Greene is a fellow in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a resident in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

--Robert Aronowitz, M.D., History and Sociology of Science Department, University of Pennsylvania "Nursing History Review"

Back Jacket

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a new model of chronic disease--diagnosed on the basis of numerical deviations rather than symptoms and treated on a preventive basis before any overt signs of illness develop--that arose in concert with a set of safe, effective, and highly marketable prescription drugs. Physician-historian Jeremy A. Greene examines the mechanisms by which drugs and chronic disease categories define one another within medical research, clinical practice, and pharmaceutical marketing, and he explores how this interaction has profoundly altered the experience, politics, ethics, and economy of health in late-twentieth-century America. His provocative analysis sheds light on the increasing presence of the subjectively healthy but highly medicated individual in the American medical landscape, suggesting how historical perspective can help to address the problems inherent in the program of pharmaceutical prevention.

"Greene describes the relationship between advances in treatment, the incentives of manufacturers, and the effect on the public of increased attention to prevention . . . The risk-benefit trade-offs of the quantitative approach are complex, and Greene's historical revelations are timely."--New England Journal of Medicine

"One of the best, and most significant, books published recently on the development of medical practice and the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. in the second half of the twentieth century."--Social History of Medicine

"Greene focuses on the question of how public health priorities became closely aligned with the pharmaceutical industry's marketing practices . . . [and] offers a nuanced description of the development of 'therapeutics of risk reduction' with multiple lines of influence, subtle power shifts, and gains and losses for patients and physicians."--Chemical Heritage

"A gripping story . . . Greene warns us in his superb book that things are not always as they are claimed."--Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

Jeremy A. Greene is a fellow in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a resident in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Author Biography

Jeremy A. Greene is an associate professor of medicine and the Elizabeth Treide and A. McGehee Harvey Chair in the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the author of Generic: The Unbranding of Modern Medicine and coeditor of Prescribed: Writing, Filling, Using, and Abusing the Prescription in Modern America, both published by Johns Hopkins.