Taking issue with drug companies

Thanks to Susan Brink for a thoughtful and sensitive article [“Treat? Or Wait?,” Sept. 22]. Merck & Co. in particular, and the pharmaceutical industry in general, have indeed become crass, opportunistic and exploitative, as this article documents and as I am reminded each time I see a faux doctor on network TV reciting his memorized litany of danger signs and side effects of this drug or that.

Dr. J. Robert Bragonier,

Redondo Beach