It’s easy to hate the massive pharmaceutical corporations that extract obscene profit from the healthcare system—and there are many, many reasons why you should distrust these companies, although the situation is far more complex than “Big Pharma = bad.” But how did we get here? How did medical care get so expensive, so complicated and sometimes, so harmful?

Narcotica co-host Troy Farah speaks with Dr. John Abramson, a long-time critic of Big Pharma, whose new book Sickening untangles the many perverse incentives that dominate American healthcare. It helps explain why drug prices are so high, why medications that harm instead of heal are regularly approved by the FDA and much more, starting with the recent debacle over Aduhelm, an extremely controversial Alzheimer’s drug.

Follow Dr. Abramson on Twitter: @DrJohnAbramson and get Sickening: ow Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It here.

You can read Troy’s review of Sickening on Undark Magazine here: https://undark.org/2022/03/18/book-review-sickening/

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 46: Behind The Pharmacists’ Counter with Jessica Moreno
Episode 30: Getting Wrecked with Dr. Kim Sue
Episode 65: Restoring Trust in Doctors Amidst The Overdose Crisis with Dr. Ben Cocchiaro and Dr. Ashish Thakrar

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Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Aaron Ferguson
Music: Glass Boy / Nomad1
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: Rudolf Ammann / Flickr // edit: Troy Farah

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