Prescription for Disaster 2005
Distributed by Gary Null & Associates, 2307 Broadway, New York, NY 10024; 646-505-4660
Produced by Gary Null
Director n/a
DVD, color, 88 min.
Sr. High - Adult
Health Sciences
Date Entered: 09/29/2006
Reviewed by Kay Hogan Smith, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Lister Hill Library of the Health SciencesThis documentary investigates the convoluted and altogether unhealthy relationships between the drug industry, the FDA and the practice of medicine in America.
Recent revelations about drugs such as Vioxx (rofecoxib) that was approved by the FDA and gained widespread use among arthritis patients before it was recalled by the manufacturer in 2004 should and has prompted some industry-wide soul searching into the multilayered potential for conflicts of interest in our current health and medical research system. This film ably documents the need for such soul-searching. With interviews of such industry notables as Dr. David Graham, the FDA whistleblower in the Vioxx case, and Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, Prescription for Disaster makes a clear case against the reliance on pharmaceutical company funding for research and medical education in this country, not to mention drug company money in our regulatory and government oversight offices. Director and Producer Gary Null, who is a nutritionist and holistic medicine advocate, even makes a strong statement against our over reliance on “pharmaceutical solutions to public health issues.”
However, the portion of the film focusing on complementary and integrative medicine will not likely be viewed with as much seriousness by Western medicine practitioners as the other parts of the documentary, due to its conspiracy theory tones and lack of documentation for the studies referred to by interviewees on the proof of natural therapies’ effectiveness. Still, this is a very worthy and timely purchase for medical and consumer health libraries.