this is more than a study in the jurisprudence of regulation and of technology. The book also contains important and instructive essays in medical law (particularly), seeking, as it does, to explicate many of the background debates (for example on consent (pp 72–86) and information rights (pp 87–98), on the (legitimate and illegitimate) purposive interpretation of key texts such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 and embryonic stem cell research (pp 47–56, 168–184), property in human tissue (pp 61–68) and genetic databases and forensic collections (pp 215–235), each of which is often treated in a more or less superficial way in some of the standard texts and commentaries, where judicial and legislative statements are offered without background context beyond some preferred ethical standpoint. And there are considerations of bioethics generally (pp 32–47, 100–118), patenting and human life forms (187–195), gambling (197–201), nanotechnology (pp 118–125).
Jackson provides a meticulously argued, extensively researched and utterly compelling critique of the current regulation of phar- maceuticals. Her account of a medicine’s journey through the regulatory system in the UK paints a frightening picture of the widespread, predatory activities of profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and the systematic failure of law and regulation effectively to hold them to account. The UK, with its well developed and well financed pharmaceutical industry and equally well entrenched tradition of state-run health care, provides a particularly fine case study for the exploration of the tension between the ideals of medicine and the pursuit of profit and, as such, it is to be hoped that this book will gain a wide, international audience.