Alan Cassels has been immersed in pharmaceutical policy research for the past 20 years, studying how prescription drugs are regulated, marketed, prescribed and used. Most of the time he obsessively dissects the large gap between the marketing and the science behind prescription drugs, medical screening and other forms of disease creation. His books include Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning Us All into Patients (co-written with Ray Moynihan); The ABCs of Disease Mongering: An Epidemic in 26 Letters; and Seeking Sickness: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease.
In all of his books, Cassels weighs in on the folly of practitioners and profiteers increasingly selling us tests, treatments and theories of disease that threaten to turn more and more of us into patients. He believes that humans need clean information as urgently as they need clean water, and one of the best ways to steer clear of avoidable medical intervention, folly and harm is by using the products of the Cochrane Collaboration, one of the world's best sources of quality medical information.
Cassels is a health policy researcher affiliated with the Faculty of Human and Social Development at the University of Victoria. He is a trusted media commentator on medical policy issues and a frequent contributor to magazines, newspapers and the CBC Radio program IDEAS. He lectures and presents keynote speeches around the world. Contact him at cassels@uvic.ca, twitter: @AKECassels