Prescribing by Numbers

Jeremy A. Greene is an assistant professor in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University and an instructor in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at the Department of Medicine of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Pharmacopoeia of Risk ReductionPart One: Diuril and Hypertension, 1957-19771. Releasing the Flood Waters: The Development and Promotion of Diuril2. Shrinking the Symptom, Growing the Disease: Hypertension after DiurilPart Two: Orinase and Diabetes, 1960-19803. Finding the Hidden Diabetic: Orinase Creates a New Market4. Risk and the Symptom: The Trials of OrinasePart Three: Mevacor and Cholesterol, 1970-20005. The Fall and Rise of a Risk Factor: Cholesterol and Its Remedies6. Know Your Number: Cholesterol and the Threshold of PathologyConclusion: The Therapeutic TransitionNotesIndex

Greene provides suggestions on how to address some of the problems inherent in medical prevention. Choice 2007 Shows how the process of defining disease 'illustrates the porous relationship between the science and the marketing of health care.' -- Nina C. Ayub Chronicle of Higher Education 2007 A gripping story... Greene warns us in his superb book that things are not always as they are claimed. -- Howard Spiro Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine 2007 This is, I believe, one of the best, and most significant, books published recently on the development of medical practice and the pharmaceutical industry in the USA in the second half of the twentieth century. -- Judy Slinn Social History of Medicine 2007 Greene focuses on the question of how public health priorities became closely aligned with the pharmaceutical industry's marketing practices... 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. -- Arthur Daemmrich Chemical Heritage 2008 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. -- Kevin A. Schulman, M.D. New England Journal of Medicine 2007 The interaction between medical science and industry has been fruitfully explored by several excellent historians... but Greene's intricate narratives extend their work. -- Marcia Meldrum Isis 2008 I heartily recommend this book. -- Toine Pieters Medical History 2008 By the end of Prescribing by Numbers, one realizes it is an excellent book to think with. Greene uses his case studies to juxtapose the therapeutics of risk with more contemporary health dilemmas. -- Gregory J. Higby Pharmacy in History 2009 Greene's nuanced and lucid research yields new insight into the mechanisms that linked specific medications to the management of particular chronic diseases in the postwar era. -- Cynthia A. Connolly, PhD, RN Nursing History Review 2011