Jerry Avorn, MD, is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a senior internist in the Mass General Brigham health-care system. He built a leading research center at Harvard to study medication use and outcomes, and is one of the most highly cited authorities in his field. He is the author of Rethinking Medications.
A guide to understanding and taking control of prescription drugs
Rethinking Medications:
Truth, Power, and the Drugs You Take
Advice on navigating America's bewildering landscape of medicines
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Understanding how medications get approved, and who determines their cost
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Asking the right questions and making more evidence-based decisions
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Combating unaffordable prescriptions
Get answers from Dr. Avorn's book and research
This AI tool scans Rethinking Medications and dozens of his research studies to respond to specific questions. Remember that AI can sometimes make mistakes, so be sure to check the underlying source and ask your clinician about specific medical questions.
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What people say about
"Rethinking Medications gives us the historical and recent lessons we need to move forward with smarter solutions for the U.S. healthcare industry."
Mark Cuban,
Entrepreneur, drug cost innovator, and former Shark Tank principal.
What people say about
"A bracing multidisciplinary approach to raising and deftly answering every question you have—as well as many that may not have occurred to you."
Howard Gardner
Author of Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences and Hobbs Professor of Cognition, Harvard University
What people say about
"A masterful assessment of a highly flawed health care system."
Kirkus Reviews
What people say about
"A damning survey of the drug development system’s many failures, this enlightens even as it infuriates."
Publishers Weekly
What people say about
"This eye-opening look at the pharmaceutical industry should make FDA officials want to scrutinize drug approvals more carefully."
Booklist
Patients, policymakers, and even doctors agree:
Medications can be confusing
Why so expensive?
Americans pay twice what people in other countries pay for the same medications. Why? And what can you do about it?
Is it safe?
We had some high-profile drug safety debacles until the nation developed a system to prevent them. Why? And what can you do about it?
Meet your guide
“I'm Dr. Jerry Avorn, a Harvard Medical School professor. But I didn't start out in the establishment. In the 1960s, I was protesting at Columbia, demanding social justice. That fire never left me—it just found a different focus.
For over 40 years, I've studied prescription drugs from the inside. I pioneered 'academic detailing' — a non-profit service that provides doctors with unbiased information that’s more reliable than pharmaceutical marketing. I testified in the Vioxx trials, fighting for patients who were harmed. I built one of the nation's leading drug research programs by asking uncomfortable questions about effectiveness, safety, and cost.
And I finished writing Rethinking Medications at my wife's bedside during her leukemia treatment. I've lived this from both sides: as a researcher who knows the system inside out, and as a family member navigating the maze just like you.
I'm not here to scare you. I'm here to help you understand—and take control."
