Contents

• The golden age of medicine, tarnished : how health care has evolved
• Disease fiefdoms : how the glut of specialists hurts our health
• The little purple pill : how the pharmaceutical industry peddles drugs
• Cultural snapshot : how consumer and advocacy groups influence medicine
• The sword of Damocles : how the threat of malpractice suits injures medical care
• In the beginning : how America has created a business of birth
• Balloons, stents, and knives : the heart of the matter
• Below the belt : prostate cancer screening
• A new cottage industry : looking for colon cancer
• The breast decision : mammograms, hope or reality?
• When the bone breaks : the osteoporosis industry
• At the end : the high cost of dying in America
• Transforming our diseased health care system : proposals for cure