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Bottle of Lies
A review of

Bottle of Lies

The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom

Katherine EbanEcco • 2019

Dangerous Generics

by David Meyer

Andrew Carnegie fellow Katherine Eban details the widespread corruption within the generic drug industry and explains why government regulators are all but powerless to protect consumers.

Andrew Carnegie fellow Katherine Eban, a contributor to Fortune magazine, warns about the dangers of generic drugs. Spanning continents and decades, she depicts an industry rife with corruption and fraud – focusing, primarily, on the case of Ranbaxy Laboratories. Eban uses the Ranbaxy case to illustrate how regulatory bodies like the US Food and Drug Administration have failed to stop the industry’s malfeasance, and why she doesn’t think circumstances will improve. It is a necessary read, though a far from happy one.

Eban’s stellar journalism resulted in Bottle of Lies becoming a New York Times bestseller, and earned it a listing on the New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2019 and the New York Public Library Best Books of 2019. She garnered uniformly positive reviews for her writing and for the power of her insights. NPR.org called Eban’s work, “Propulsive…astounding…disturbing,” and The Hindustan Times wrote, “An extraordinary international corporate thriller… This book is good for your health.”