Worried Sick · a Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America

Review"It is impossible to read this monograph and remain complacent with the current medical model. . . . [Hadler] very clearly states a series of provocative tenets which deserve serious consideration."--_The Pharos_

"An important book. . . . The reader will understand symptoms and their causation and will be richer for it--intellectually and in pocket."- Journal of Rheumatology

"To change unrealistic expectations about longevity or lives without pain or illness bucks vested interests, but that is what Hadler does. . . . He knows that the changes he proposes are a long shot, but when people demand that medicine stop doing unnecessary things well, reform becomes possible. Recommended."- Choice

"[Hadler's] arguments are logical and make one think about the status quo."- Milwaukee Academy of Medicine

"This is recommended reading even if you are determined in advance to despise it. You will be better off having wrestled with his arguments and . . . probably will not find them easy to refute."- Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons

"[Hadler's] self-confessed 'diatribe against medicalisation' is an engaging read."- Medical Journal of Australia

"Thought-provoking, and one of the better critical treatments of our health care approach."- DTC Perspectives

"A seminal piece of medical literature with an Avicennian touch that will be read and debated by health care professionals for years to come."- Wake County Physician

Case by case, drug by drug, test by test, and procedure by procedure, Hadler exposes the excesses, the unjustified costliness, and the ineffectiveness of the present medical scene. He presents a proposal for a health-care insurance system that will increase the health of the nation, provide only effective care, and reduce costs. All self-funded employers must read, absorb, and install Hadler's well-founded ideas.- Clifton K. Meador, M.D., author of A Little Book of Doctors' Rules, Med School, and Symptoms of Unknown Origin

This book challenges readers to alter their notions about health maintenance, discarding beliefs about the efficacy of certain medications, screening tests, and procedures. . . . This thoughtful message from an experienced medical practitioner has merit and may convince the general public to advocate more forcefully for change.- ForeWord Magazine

Challenging conventional medical wisdom, [Hadler] advises a healthy skepticism about the benefits of drugs, routine tests, and many common medical procedures. . . . The book . . . will educate [readers] on being far better health-care consumers. . . . [A] provocative look at the U.S. medical system.- Library Journal

A serious diagnosis of what ails modern American medicine which will surprise and educate even the most savvy reader. Hadler exposes the fallacies that drive unnecessary and often harmful treatments and offers a hard-hitting series of remedies that could benefit us all.- Jerome Groopman, M.D., Harvard Medical School, author of How Doctors Think

"Provides readers with the perspectives and skills necessary to advocate for themselves in the contemporary health care delivery system."- Journal of Economic Literature

"[Hadler] has the requisite irreverence and skepticism toward medical providers and the healthcare labyrinth to write a clear-sighted appraisal of the current system's failures."- The Morning News

"Having guidelines for reimbursement that went through a Hadlerian analysis is not a bad place to start reducing medical care costs without reducing the quality of patient outcomes. A much more politically attractive, and potentially quite effective, reform would make it routine for patients to be exposed to Hadler's kind of analyses whenever they are asked to consider any significant medical intervention."- Journal of the American Medical Association

"Anyone who wants help in evaluating . . . treatments will welcome the details that Hadler provides. . . . [His] challenge to the value of these treatments demands a response from the physicians, pharmaceutical companies, and others who sell these treatments' benefits and urge us to 'take advantage' of them."- Chapel Hill News

"Dr. Hadler . . . is a longtime debunker of much that the establishment holds dear. . . . Reviewing the data behind many of the widely endorsed medical truths of our day, he concludes that most come up too short on benefit and too high on risk to justify widespread credence. . . . Raise[s] serious questions." - The New York Times

"The question Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America aims to answer is how to get your four score and five. Surprisingly, it argues against relying on many of the accepted practices of modern American medicine. . . . Iconoclastic."- Raleigh News Observer

"A withering critique. . . . [Hadler has] the knowledge, power, and moral obligation to reject the false coin of commerce and technological hype and to reassert the primacy of the patient."- New England Journal of Medicine

Product DescriptionAt a time when access to health care in the United States is being widely debated, Nortin Hadler argues that an even more important issue is being overlooked. Although necessary health care should be available to all who need it, he says, the current health-care debate assumes that everyone requires massive amounts of expensive care to stay healthy. Hadler urges that before we commit to paying for whatever pharmaceutical companies and the medical establishment tell us we need, American consumers need to adopt an attitude of skepticism and arm themselves with enough information to make some of their own decisions about what care is truly necessary.

Each chapter of Worried Sick is an object lesson regarding the uses and abuses of a particular type of treatment, such as mammography, colorectal screening, statin drugs, or coronary stents. For consumers and medical professionals interested in understanding the scientific basis for Hadler's arguments, each topical chapter has an accompanying source chapter in which Hadler discusses the medical literature and studies that inform his critique.

According to Hadler, a major stumbling block to rational health-care policy in the United States is contention over the very concept of what constitutes good health. By learning to distinguish good medical advice from persuasive medical marketing, consumers can make better decisions about their personal health and use that wisdom to inform their perspectives on health-policy issues.