Jama and the Politics of Medicine

In an explosive insider account, the former editor of JAMA documents the alarming capture of American medicine by commercial and political interests and calls for an overhaul of the health-care system. In January 1999 George Lundberg, the highly respected editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, was fired by the AMA. The stated reason for his dismissal was his rushing into print a study of sex that seemed to support President Clinton's dubious definitions of infidelity. But as the media furor rose to fever pitch, it became clear that this "oral sex debacle" was not Lundberg's first brush with controversy. He had outraged the AMA by charging on "60 Minutes" that doctors were burying their mistakes by not performing autopsies, and he had taken strong stands on such hot-button topics as assisted suicide, gun control, alternative medicine, and abortion. In this no-holds-barred book, Lundberg, now editor in chief of the online medical journal Medscape, speaks out on the crisis in contemporary medicine.
He charges that organized medicine has surrendered to an overbuilt and overused political-industrial complex that underfunds prevention, undermines scientific research, and overlooks patients' needs-with disastrous results for doctors and patients alike. High costs and managed care are the least of our problems, says Lundberg: the greatest threat is the pervasive erosion of professional standards. Lundberg's keen analysis of greedy doctors, profit-hungry drug companies, and a corrupted AMA that seeks only to protect vested interests is certain to provoke controversy and stimulate debate.