Malignant (book)

2020 book by Vinay Prasad

Malignant

First edition cover

Author| Vinay Prasad
Genre| Non-fiction
Publisher| Johns Hopkins University Press

Publication date

| 2020

Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer is a nonfiction book by Vinay Prasad, published in 2020 by Johns Hopkins University Press.[1]

## Content

[edit]

The book delves into cancer policy, oncological drug regulation, and clinical trial design, examining how many marginal and unproven cancer therapies are pushed to market on the basis of hype and bias.[citation needed]

## Reviews

[edit]

According to Benjamin Chin Yee, who wrote an in-depth review of Malignant, "Prasad does not shy away from controversy, and lays out his argument in lucid, readable prose."[2] Tahla Burki writes in the Lancet Haematology, "Prasad outlines how the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves cancer therapies on the basis of arbitrarily assigned surrogate endpoints that typically have no bearing on overall survival or quality of life. He examines how a complex web of conflicts-of-interests pollutes policy debates and expert recommendations, and how studies ask irrelevant questions in unrepresentative patient populations."[3]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Lin, Kenneth W. (October 12, 2020). "'Malignant' Takes a Critical Look at Cancer Policy". Medscape. Retrieved 2021-09-23.
2. ^ Chin-Yee, Benjamin (19 March 2021). "Malignant by Vinay Prasad: Oncology's Leading Gadfly". Philosophy of Medicine. 2 (1). doi:10.5195/philmed.2021.44. S2CID 234822888.
3. ^ Burki, Talha K (May 2020). "Shaping cancer policy to work towards the interests of patients". The Lancet Haematology. 7 (5): e369. doi:10.1016/S2352-3026(20)30119-8. PMID 32359451. S2CID 218490117.