Pharmaceutical industry Quote by Ben Goldacre
![“At this time we should take a brife moment to mention quacks: alternative therapists who sell vitamins and homeopathy sugar pills [the latter of which, by definition, contain no active ingredients], which perform no better than placebo in fair tests, and who use even cruder marketing tricks than…” quote by Ben Goldacre](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/38f/ben-goldacre-9578_pharmaceutical-indus_at-this-time-we-should-take-a-brife-mome_2265937.jpg)
““At this time we should take a brife moment to mention quacks: alternative therapists who sell vitamins and homeopathy sugar pills [the latter of which, by definition, contain no active ingredients], which perform no better than placebo in fair tests, and who use even cruder marketing tricks than the ones described in this book. In these people profit at all from the justified anger that people feel towards the pharmaceutical industry, then it comes at the expense of genuinely constructive activity. Selling ineffective sugar pills is not a meaningful policy response to the regulatory failure we have seen in this book””
About This Quote
Source Book: Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, 2008
Quack therapies exploit public distrust of pharma, offering ineffective treatments that do no better than placebo.
In simple terms: Quacks sell useless cures exploiting anger at pharma.
Key Takeaway
Demand evidence‑based medicine and regulation.
Themes
skepticism
public health
ethics
Mood
critical
concerned
Type
explanatory
advocacy
When to use this quote
- patient advocacy
- policy reform
- consumer education
Key Concepts
placebo effect
marketing manipulation
regulatory failure
Questions to Reflect On
- How can we better inform the public about evidence?
- What policies could curb deceptive health marketing?
A Different Perspective
Placebo effects can be powerful, but they do not replace real efficacy.
![“Homeopathy pills are, after all, empty little sugar pills which seem to work, and so they embody [..] how we can be misled into thinking that any intervention is more effective than it really is.” quote by Ben Goldacre](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e95/ben-goldacre-9578_empty_homeopathy-pills-are-after-all-empty-lit_1267980.jpg)
![“[I]t seems to me that a lot of the stranger ideas people have about medicine derive from an emotional struggle with the very notion of a pharmaceutical industry. Whatever our political leanings, we all feel nervous about profit taking any role in the caring professions, but that feeling has…” quote by Ben Goldacre](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/a80/ben-goldacre-9578_medicine_i-t-seems-to-me-that-a-lot-of-the-strang_1542082.jpg)
![“And if, by the end [of this book], you reckon you might still disagree with me, then I offer you this: you'll still be wrong, but you'll be wrong with a lot more panache and flair than you could possibly manage right now.” quote by Ben Goldacre](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/8a6/ben-goldacre-9578_book_and-if-by-the-end-of-this-book-you-recko_125048.jpg)
