Semi-finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award
In 1996, a terrible epidemic began killing young American women. Some died quickly, literally dropping in their steps. Others took more time, from a few months to a few years. Those who weren't killed suffered damage to their lungs and hearts, much of it permanent and reparable only with major surgery. Doctors suspected what the killer was. So did the Food and Drug Administration. The culprits were the two most popular diet drugs in the United States, Pondimin, one-half of the popular drug combination Fen-Phen, and Redux, a stronger version of Pondimin. They were also two of the most profitable drugs on the market, and both were produced and sold by a powerful pharmaceutical company, Wyeth-Ayerst, a division of American Home Products.
Dispensing the Truth is the gripping storry of what the drug really knew about its drugs, the ways it kept this information from the public, doctors, and FDA, and the massive legal battles that ensued as victims and their attorneys searched for the truth behind the debacle.
It tells the story of a healthy young woman, Mary Linnen, who took the drugs for only twenty-three days to lose weight before her wedding, and then died in the arms of her fiance a few months later. Hers was the first wrongful-death suit filed amd would become the most important single suit the company would ever face.
Alicia Mundy provides a shocking and thoroughly riveting narrative. It is a stark look at the consequences of greed and a cautionary tale for the future.
"In the tradition of A Civil Action and In Cold Blood, this important and timely book reads like a riveting murder mystery . . . Alicia Mundy's book shines an overdue and informing spotlight on the immense, and not always well-used, power of national pharmaceutical corporations . . . over FDA regulators, over elected officials, and over the consuming public. Readers will leave Dispensing with the Truth's final pages armed with new insights--and heightened concerns--regarding the safety of the pharmaceuticals they consume. This is a significant and utterly engaging work of legal journalism at its best. It is also reminds us that lawyers can sometimes be heroes. And it makes me personally proud that some of the heroes in these pages are former students of mine."
Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
"[A] sad, infuriating and important tale . . . [Mundy's] mastery of the massive scandal's legal, political and regulatory issues is impressive, her documentation comprehensive. [S]he has produced an exemplary piece of reportage on an appalling and utterly needless catastrophe."
