The Danger Within Us
America's Untested, Unregulated Medical Device Industry and One Man's Battle to Survive It
by Jeanne Lenzer
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Pub Date Dec 12 2017 | Archive Date Mar 12 2018
Description
Medical interventions have become the third leading cause of death in America.
An estimated 10 percent of Americans are implanted with medical devices -- like pacemakers, artificial hips, cardiac stents, etc.
The overwhelming majority of high-risk implanted devices have never undergone a single clinical trial.
In The Danger Within Us, award-winning journalist Jeanne Lenzer brings these horrifying statistics to life through the story of one working class man who, after his "cure" nearly kills him, ends up in a battle for justice against the medical establishment.
His crusade leads Lenzer on a journey through the dark underbelly of the medical device industry, a fascinating and disturbing world that hasn't been written about before. What Lenzer exposes will shock readers: rampant corruption, elaborate cover-ups, shameless profiteering, and astonishing lack of oversight, all of which leads to dangerous devices (from artificial hips to pacemakers) going to market and into our bodies.
In the vein of America's Bitter Pill and A Civil Action, The Danger Within Us is a stirring call for reform and a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of American healthcare.
"Before you get anything implanted in your body, read this book."-Shannon Brownlee, author of Overtreated
Advance Praise
"Lenzer, a medical investigative journalist, powerfully details some alarming reasons hospital CEOs, insurance executives, and doctors become millionaires... Readers will be impressed with Lenzer's profiles of doctors who decry unnecessary treatments and tests, decline to take money for drug company sponsored talks, advocate disentangling money and medicine, and promote 'doing as little as possible to patients and as much as possible for patients.'" —Booklist (Starred Review)
"Lenzer makes an excellent, often disturbing case for 'a new national attitude toward healthcare.'" —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"Engrossing and terrifying...Lenzer takes readers deep into the processes by which medical devices are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Thorough research is skillfully interwoven with the story of Dennis Fegan, whose struggle to expose the dangers of an implanted device that nearly killed him is both gripping and emotionally affecting... Highly recommended." —Library Journal (Starred Review)
"More than a decade ago, longtime BMJ contributor Lenzer abandoned her career as an emergency room physician associate to become an investigative medical journalist. Her debut book, an inspired inquiry into the politics of the industry, is startling and provocative . . . Reading like a cross between a riveting medical thriller and 'a Kafka novel', the book is a powerful cautionary tale . . . An impassioned exposé that uncovers a significant danger within the contemporary health care industry." —Kirkus
"Jeanne Lenzer has pulled off a brilliant literary hat trick; a page-turning tale of one patient's odyssey, combined with hard-hitting investigative reporting and a compelling call to arms to fix America's broken health care system. Before you get anything implanted in your body, read this book." —Shannon Brownlee, author of Overtreated
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780316343763 |
| PRICE | $28.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 336 |
Links
Featured Reviews
David W, Media/Journalist
License to kill
Stephen King must be envious. Nothing he has written is nearly as frightening or as suspenseful as what the medical-industrial complex does to its customers, us. In Jeanne Lenzer’s The Danger Within Us, the implants we now consider to be everyday miracles (hips, knees, stents, pacemakers, etc.) have caused conditions worthy of banning by international treaties against torture. The greed, selfishness, self-dealing and corruption is unending, and nothing ever seems to stop it.
The book is structured around a single interminable case, Dennis Fegen, who was implanted with a device called a Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS) which is meant to lessen epileptic seizures, among a dozen other things, all unproven. It dug its way into his jugular vein (from which it cannot be removed) and nearly killed him countless times, stopping his heart every three minutes. The company bullied the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), leveraged congressmen and withheld failure stats to win approval for this device, which studies say is essentially useless, when not dangerous. At least as many do worse with it as do better. The US military is now considering it for vets with PTSD.
Medical devices are not tracked like prescription drugs. Lenzer estimates 70 million Americans have had implants in the last ten years alone. The number of people who died because of them is not collected either, and the FDA itself says less than 1% have been reported by the device makers. Since the number of reported deaths is 16,000, possibly two million have actually died. Annually. (Overall, the health care system is the number three cause of death in the USA.) Lenzer cites several experts who estimate that a good 50% of devices get implanted unnecessarily. Standard medical treatment would be just as effective, if not more so. And safer.
Lenzer provides plenty of other examples, including drugs like Genentech’s blockbuster tPA, which has been proven to be no better than its old fashioned competition, and in some ways worse. Though far more expensive, of course. And as we head into the great future of the internet of things, more and more devices report data. They are hackable targets, able to kill the patient remotely, via cellphone.
There are numerous books like this in various sub-fields within medicine, as well as chemicals, nutrition and agriculture. The evidence is stark. The effects often fatal. And nothing ever comes of it. (Just ask Dennis Fegen, who has been contacting anyone and everyone for years with zero results.) No congressional hearings, no permit revocations, no criminal prosecutions. Not even libel suits. Maybe the occasional fine. And to top it off, the Supreme Court has ended liability suits by victims if the device operated properly. Industry bribes doctors to sell each other. Industry finances politicians. Industry dangles fat jobs in front of FDA types. Doctors live in a state of suspension of disbelief when it’s not simple gullibility. The bogus VNS gizmo sits front and center on the company’s website. At $40,000 (installation not included), it is key to their success, and to hell with the (over a thousand) bodies piling up. The Danger Within Us in infuriating.
David Wineberg
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