An insightful, engrossing exploration of how our notions of 'disease' have evolved-with profound implications for understanding the health care of today and tomorrow. -- Jerry Avorn, M.D, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, author of Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs What is remarkable about this book is not just the grace and assurance of Greene's writing, but the way Greene combines an insider's view of medical practice and pharmaceutical marketing with much broader social currents. It is an extraordinarily impressive work of scholarship. -- Carl Elliott, M.D., Ph.D., University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics, author of Better than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream Greene's historical account of our brave new world of drug-driven risk reduction is troubling and calls for some response. Both the scholarly depth and balanced tone of Prescribing by Numbers suggests that rather than simply rooting out bad actors and unethical practices, we must grapple with the very values and structural forces that are central to medical care and health today. -- Robert Aronowitz, M.D., History and Sociology of Science Department, University of Pennsylvania

Greene provides suggestions on how to address some of the problems inherent in medical prevention.