This book acknowledges that there can be no reflection on liberalism without the concept of freedom but that no concept of freedom can be included among the different forms of liberalism. The two words which constitute the subject of this investigation refer to empirical or conceptual realities and a priori different chronologies.

Sismondo describes what happens within the chain from the design of the clinical trial to the diffusion of drug results, and highlights what he calls "ghost-management", which allows for a high degree of control of drug science by the pharmaceutical industry to influence doctors' prescriptions.