Someone was complaining in the past about Last Week Tonight giving only superficial coverage of The Issues and viewers maintaining entertained ignorance. In this case, there's an excellent book summarizing all of the present (2012) issues in the pharmaceutical industry: Bad Pharma. It covers everything from the (many) shortcomings of ClinicalTrials.gov to the (many) ways that pharmaceutical companies influence doctors past just straight up giving them money / gifts / foods.
Whew, I'm glad this is a good episode. I was losing hope towards the end of Season 1.
Whilst this was an interesting segment, I didn't really feel that it was a shock, in that I was pretty convinced that this has been going on for many, many years. I totally agree that this hideous behaviour on the part of big pharma. It makes me grateful that I am not dependent on pharmaceutical drugs.