Audio of Shannon Brownlee by Growing Bolder, at growingbolder.com

Caption: Shannon Brownlee

Posted: 05/21/2008 1:53pm

In a time when healthcare is a big topic, medical writer Shannon Brownlee's new book, "Overtreated," is saying too much medicine is a bad thing.

Brownlee, a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, says even though 47 million Americans don't have healthcare, millions of people are victims of over treatment.

She's even made a bold statement: Brownlee has said that healthcare is a leading cause of death in America. Here, we spend 16 percent of our gross domestic product, while Canada and France spend six percent less and their people live longer.

The biggest problem Brownlee has written about is called "condition-branded" marketing, where a minor issue is diagnosed as a sign of a more serious condition to sell drugs.

She talks with Growing Bolder about who she thinks has vision for healthcare in the presidential race and what she thinks of Michael Moore's controversial movie, Sicko.