"Deadly Monopolies": The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself—And the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future.

Harriet Washington, medical ethicist and author. Her new book is called Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself—And the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future. She is also author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present.




Harriet Washington, is a medical ethicist and has just published a book that examines the extent to which what she calls the medical-industrial complex has come to control human life. In the past 30 years, more than 40,000 patents have been granted on genes alone—many more patents are pending. Washington argues that the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies patenting these genes are more concerned with profit than with the health or medical needs of patients. Her new book is called "Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself—And the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future."