The heart of the matter -- The evolution of the French medicine -- Coping with physicians' conflicts of interest in France -- The rise of a protected medical market : the United States before 1950 -- The commercial transformation : the United States, 1950-1980 -- The logic of medical markets :...

As most Americans know, conflicts of interest riddle the US health care system. They result from physicians practicing medicine as entrepreneurs, from physicians' ties to pharma, and from investor-owned firms and insurers' influence over physicians' medical choices. These conflicts raise...

Is medical commerce a recent phenomenon? Does it distort the patient-physician relationship? Are investor-owned firms the main source of medical commercialism? The author contends that medicine has generally been commerce in the United States, that commerce is a problem when it creates or...