Learn More About Fluoroquinolones

Books

Bitter Pills: Inside the Hazardous World of Legal Drugs. By Stephen Fried. Bantam Books, div. of Random House, Inc. 1998.

The author’s wife took one fluoroquinolone pill called ofloxacin and ended up in the emergency room, delirious. Their life was never the same as she continued to suffer physical and psychological adverse effects. During this emotionally trying time, Fried, who is an investigative journalist, researched and wrote Bitter Pills. It is a rigorously documented book about the entire pharmaceutical industry, government regulators, doctors and patients and was one of the first to question the commercial production and prescribing of legal drugs in the U.S.

Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime.  By Peter C. Gotzsche.  Radcliffe Publishing, Ltd., London, UK. 2013.

This is a powerful book by a noted British physician who worked with clinical trials and regulatory affairs in the drug industry and co-founded The Cochrane Collaboration, internationally-recognized as the benchmark for high-quality information about the effectiveness of health care. The book is a shocker, revealing inside information about what “crimes and misdemeanors” are happening in the pharmaceutical industry and the broader medical world and how we have become the victims.

Fluoroquinolone-Associated Disability (FQAD) – Pathogenesis, Diagnostics, Therapy and Diagnostic Criteria, Side-Effects of Fluoroquinolones. By Stefan Pieper. Springer, 2021.

Finally, here is a book, small but mighty, that convincingly speaks to your doctor in his language about exploring the diagnostic and treatment options for FQAD.  It’s written by a German physician who recognizes the serious risks of patients who take fluoroquinolones. Dr. Pieper bases his practice and his book on patients’ fluoroquinolone experiences as well as extensively-documented scientific and academic studies.  He listens, he empathizes, he explains. He presents the scientific data behind this ongoing medical emergency that has harmed so many.  Although adverse effects are rare in percentage terms, he says, they are frequent in absolute numbers due to the enormous quantities of prescriptions. He also notes that side effects are usually quite severe and wide ranging. Technical, but worth reading by FQAD sufferers who will be reassured that someone, somewhere understands and is trying to help them. 

Floxie Hope: A Journey Through Fluoroquinolone Antibiotic Toxicity. By Lisa Bloomquist.  Floxie Hope LLC, Durango, CO. 2015.

The Hidden Dangers of Antibiotics.  By Jay S. Cohen, MD.  Square One Publishers, Garden City Park, NY. 2018.

Written by a nationally-recognized expert on prescription drugs, this book spotlights the hazards that this physician saw when his patients took Cipro, Levaquin and other fluoroquinolone antibiotics. He focuses on exposing the destructive capability of these particular drugs and their far-reaching harm, providing guidance on dealing with the consequences, and advocating for awareness and change. Dr. Cohen published an earlier book in 2015 called How We Can Halt The Cipro & Levaquin Catastrophe: The Worst Medication Disaster in U.S. History.

Nerve, Surviving Medical Madness. By Laura Buchman, Manuscripts Press 2024

This is a mother’s chilling medical memoir about how her hospitalized nineteen-year-old finds himself fighting for his life after entering the hospital for what should have been a routine, in-and-out visit.

In critical condition, with his life threatened and his health spinning out of control, she trusts the doctors and the hospital that are taking care of her son until she becomes aware that unnecessary procedures, tests, scans, and medications, including multiple doses of Levaquin, may have set off a catastrophic cascade of devastating health issues.

Nerve takes you on a terrifying journey as this resilient young man navigates an unfathomable health crisis that could happen to anyone. It's a warning for all of us how we should monitor the medical and hospital care we receive or that given to a loved one.  This book is a must-read for everyone, including the medical community.

Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America. By Gerald Posner, Avid Reader Press, Simon & Shuster, Inc., New York, NY. 2020.

Well-researched account by an award-winning writer about the history of antibiotic and opioid drug promotion with its twists and turns as industry showed unconcern about the effects of continued overprescribing. The author details the innovative but sometimes unethical mass marketing activities pursued at Purdue Pharma that raised sales to stratospheric levels. The company, owned by the Sackler family, was deeply involved in deception. It was Arthur Sackler who first came up with ideas for the mass marketing of drugs, ideas which have become industry standards. This startling page-turner reveals how American drug companies have valued corporate earnings ahead of their patients.

Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs by Melody Petersen.  Picador, New York, NY. 2008

An eye-opening, chilling account of the pervasive and corrupt influence of the pharmaceutical industry in America, as told by a journalist who wrote for years about the pharmaceutical industry for The New York Times. Petersen connects the dots to show how subtle, far-reaching and dangerous Big Pharma’s powers have become in our daily lives. The author reveals how drug companies have seized control of American medicine by putting their marketers in charge. They invent diseases, she notes, in order to sell pills that “cure” them; they sway medical prescribing in powerful ways; they advertise at car races, on subways, in churches, and over and over on tv, a media where prescription drug marketing, believe it or not, is exclusively allowed in only two countries: New Zealand and the U.S. This book is one of the best early publications about Big Pharma. You’ll find shocking, disturbing details here not found in other resources.

The Risks of Prescription Drugs. By Donald W. Light. Columbia University Press, New York, NY. 2010.

This book tackles critical questions about the pharmaceutical industry and the privatization of risk.  Light as well as other contributing writers question inadequacy at the FDA, the commercialization of medical decisions and increasing medicalization of healthcare.  Light is a well-known  advocate for safer prescribing and better drugs.

Taking on Big Pharma, Dr. Charles Bennett’s Battle. By Julius Getman and Terri Leclerq. Skyhorse, 2023.

Dr. Charles Bennett, MD, PhD, MPP, our country’s most influential advocate for FQ safety, is the subject of this book. Bennett reveals explosive bombshells regarding Big Pharma, academia and law enforcement, brutal actions against leading researchers, including himself, who have identified significant findings against Pharma’s corporate interests. Bennett has a long history of revealing dangerous side effects of best-selling meds, including fluoroquinolones. He is Professor, Clinical Pharmacy and Outcomes Sciences Department, College of Pharmacy, University of South Carolina and Director of the Center for Medication Safety and Efficacy. This book is explosive and shocking.

A must-read for anyone who has ever taken a prescription drug. Rob Hennig, JD, PhD.

When a researcher responsible for “saving more lives than anyone in American medicine” is seen as a spoiler of hundreds of millions in Big Pharma profits, the stakes are extremely high—and the outcomes tragic. Terence Young, chair of Drug Safety Canada.

Whistleblower: The Case Against FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg & Renaissance Technologies Executives Peter Brown, Robert Mercer, James Simons by L. Martin, self-published. 2020.

It all started for the author with severe medical issues that were eventually traced to taking Levaquin. Extensive research into fluoroquinolones led her to team up with a noted drug safety expert to seek new FDA labeling and black box warnings for Levaquin.  Persistent pressure upon the FDA created some changes, but not all.  Further research revealed actions and a major conflict of interest against the top FDA Commissioner who seemingly had held up, delayed or discouraged Levaquin warnings during her tenure while she and her husband benefited from drug stock profits. This book details the author’s drug suffering as well as the her revelatory journey as she uncovered a case against the former FDA Commissioner and others.

Worst Pills Best Pills, A Consumer’s Guide to Avoiding Drug-Induced Death or Illness.  Simon & Shuster, Inc., New York, NY. 2005.