Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-291) and index.

This book moves the conversation about prescription drugs to where it hits home: our own bodies. How, Critser asks, has "big pharma" created a nation of pharmaceutical tribes, each with its own unique beliefs, taboos, and brand loyalties? How have powerful chemical compounds for chronic diseases, once controlled by physicians, become substances we feel entitled to, whether we need them or not? How did we come to hate drug companies but love their pills? Read about: the business story behind pharma's rise to power; the dramatic effects our drug culture is having on our major organs, from the liver to the heart to the brain; why old bodies and young bodies are the biggest, and riskiest, arenas for the prescription pill party; and how the largely uncharted terrain of polypharmacy (various drugs taken together) has unleashed unanticipated, often deadly, consequences on unwitting patients.--From publisher description.

SACFinal081324