"Biomedical science--the research that underlies our treatments and cures--is in deep crisis. Every year, American taxpayers spend more than $30 billion funding it. About half of that work, by some estimates, is wrong. As award-winning science journalist Richard Harris reveals in Rigor Mortis, this is not simply the result of trial and error, which is an essential part of the scientific process. The economic imperative for researchers to get and keep...

The author shows how corporate salesmanship has triumphed over science inside the biggest pharmaceutical companies and, in turn, how this promotion driven industry has taken over the practice of medicine and is changing American life.