The second of the Kidnap Capers is Pharma Con. This one took a great deal of research, and I learned a lot about the medicine we are offered in this country. Since I wrote the book, it's become a bigger and bigger issue, and our current HHS secretary has some interesting ideas that seem to come from nowhere. I don't even want to be a health care expert, but if I had to fix things I'd be every bit as qualified to do so as RFK is, and I would not take the path he's taking.

That said, medicine is big business. I read a lot about how drugs come to market and how they are presented in that market. One big problem is our government's failure to limit prescription advertising. Many countries don't allow ads for prescription meds, and that's a good thing.

The story goes that some U.S. ad execs were sitting around a table, discussing how to get doctors more interested in prescribing their products. They batted ideas for a while, and then one person said, "What if we get the consumers to ask the doctors for the drugs?" That began the bombardment of ads on TV and in print, telling you to "ask your doctor" about such-and-such a drug. People don't know much about medicine, so they see the ad and think it might help with something that's ailing them. It's human nature to want to please others, so their doctor is reluctant to say, "No you don't need that." I saw it with my mother-in-law, who decided from seeing ads that she had restless leg syndrome. She merely mentioned it, and her doctor prescribed whatever the stuff was that was supposed to fix that problem. 

We need to fix our nation's "pharma cons," but we're a long way from doing it correctly right now.

Pharma Con has Robin and her wacky group going after a pharmaceutical bigwig who cheats his way through life. Their biggest problem is getting to him on his well-guarded estate, where they have to fight hard to protect each other and take the bad guy down a peg or two. This book is available here for $2.99