Medical Progress Today, July 28, 2006

Medical Progress Today invites you to indulge in some summer reading that we think best explains the promises and pitfalls of modern health care. We have invited leading health care policy experts to suggest their favorite books and articles that address the modern health care system.

These may not be your typical beach books but they will definitely inform and enlighten those who wish to learn more about health care policy. Enjoy...

What States Can Do to Reform Health Care: A Free-Market Primer
Ed. John Graham (Pacific Research Institute, July 2006)

John Graham of the Pacific Research Institute states:

I heartily recommend: What States Can Do to Reform Health Care: A Free-Market Primer, edited by John R. Graham, Director of Health Care Studies at Pacific Research Institute, with seven chapters written by the best health policy analysts around today - including Manhattan Institute's Jim Copland, who wrote a chapter on medical malpractice reform. As well as medical malpractice, these chapters cover Medicaid reform, the illegal piracy of prescription medicines from Canada, pharmaceutical cost containment, regulation of private health insurance, and hospitals, as well as health professions, too. Readers will learn about how state governments can increase freedom, while lowering costs and increasing quality of health care in their states - equipping them to ask candidates the right questions for this November.

Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute also recommends the book, saying:

This is the first book of its kind. It's a must read for all state legislators. Health care reform at the state level is very important and this primer provides the solutions.

Measuring the Gains From Medical Research
Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel, eds. (University Of Chicago Press, April 2003)

Benjamin Zycher of the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute recommends this book for its:

Strong analysis of the economic (and human) value of research and development in medicine, and of the costs and perversities attendant upon efforts by government to suppress the high prices of new technologies.

Coincidence or Crisis
Ed. by Peter Pitts (Stockholm, 2006)

Peter Pitts of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest states:

The business of creating, distributing and selling counterfeit pharmaceutical products is an unregulated, criminal and growing part of the global economy. With lives at stake, pharmaceutical counterfeiting is an urgent problem.

According to a 1997 report from the World Health Organization (WHO), 10%-20% of drugs tested in developing countries failed the most basic quality test, meaning the medicines are either counterfeit or that they have not been handled according to manufacturer specifications.

In Europe, in practice otherwise known as parallel trade or re-importation, profiteers masquerading as pharmacists are selling unsafe, unregulated, mislabeled, repacked and co-mingled drugs to unsuspecting consumers.

Coincidence or Crisis brings together some of the world's leading experts to discuss the growth of counterfeit pharmaceuticals. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the core issues, while delimiting key strategies to tackle the problem.

Mortal Peril
Richard Epstein. (Perseus Books Group, May 2000)

Benjamin Zycher of the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute praises this book for:

Great discussion of the destructiveness of modern "compassion," and of the inexorable decline in actual health care access caused by legal mandates for greater access.

Impact of Formularies on Clinical Innovation
Dr. Frederick Goodwin, Journal of Clinical Psychology
(Volume 64, 2003, Supplement 17).

Peter Pitts of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest says of the article:

The existing philosophy and practice of evidence-based medicine tries to eliminate practice variation. But, since they are population-based, EBM's analyses and the guidelines that flow from them are so flawed that they generally eliminate about 60 percent of the variation that actually exists in individuals. The effort to develop predictive approaches to health care using retrospective evaluation of population-based studies is outdated, dangerously outdated, in an era where new medical products use the integration of complex biology in both the screening of patients and the development of medicines. Evidence-based medicine, while a laudable enterprise, uses the tools and concepts of the last century when a new toolkit is required to assess this century's new targeted and evolving health solutions.

The triumph of modern medicine is that it can be so precisely targeted to a single patient's needs. It is a dramatic leap forward from EBM's sweeping approach, which sees only through the broad lens of population-based studies, and the individual patient is kept out of focus.

Unfortunately, EBM continues to enjoy broad support in the policy community. Why? Because at its core, evidence-based medicine is cost-based rather than patient-based. In other words, its standardized approach supposedly saves money. But this is extremely shortsighted.

As Mark McClellan, the chief architect of American health care policy said, "Looking at a gigantic uniform solution for everything is never going to work." We must move forward by looking ahead.

Miracle Cure
Sally C. Pipes. (Pacific Research Institute, September 2004)

Benjamin Zycher of the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute says:

Miracle Cure does a great job illustrating the patient-last horrors awaiting a nation embarking down the road toward single-payer nirvana.

The Cutter Incident
Dr. Paul Offit. (Yale University Press, October 2005)

Peter Huber of the Manhattan Institute says:

When regulators and courts take on the pharmaceutical industry, hold your applause until you have read The Cutter Incident, by Paul A. Offit. It is the most illuminating account you can read about the interplay between big drug companies and bigger government.

The End of Medicine
Andy Kessler. (Collins, July 2006)

David Gratzer senior fellow for the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute states:

A debatable analysis that is worth reading and thinking about.

Redefining Health Care
Michael Porter and Elizabeth Olmstead Teisberg. (Harvard Business School Press, May 2006)

David Gratzer of the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute calls this a:

"thoughtful book from a different perspective."

Crisis of Abundance
Arnold Kling. (Cato Institute, April 2006)

Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute says:

Today, everyone is crying for Rolls-Royce care at no cost. This is impossible. Arnold Kling explains in an easy to read style the problems behind our health care system and how to reform it.

For a break from health care policy books, Robert Goldberg of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest suggests two books about life science and medical innovation that could be read on the beach.

Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher
Lewis Thomas. (Penguin Books, January 1995)

Robert Goldberg of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest says:

Thomas was Dean of Yale Medical School and President of Memorial Sloan Kettering and just happened to win the National Book Award for this slim volume of essays on health, science and medical progress that are inspiring and delightful.

Luckiest Man
Jonathan Eig. (Simon & Schuster, March 29, 2005)

Robert Goldberg of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest says:

Tells the story of one the greatest ballplayers of all time and his battle against ALS. Gerhig nearly batted .300 his last full year of baseball during the early stages of ALS.