#1756 - John Abramson

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Hello, John. So, this is obviously a subject that in this current era is very intriguing and very important for people, Big Pharma, and this is the subject of your book. How Big Pharma, what is the heading? How Big Pharma Broke America?

John Abramson (0:37)

I actually have a copy of it for you.

Joe Rogan (0:39)

Oh, good, because it's not available. I tried to get it in the, they sent me copies of the audiobook, but it's in these weird WAVE files, and when you have to turn your screen off or it shuts off the sound. All right, Sickening, How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It.

So how did they break American health care? What happened? How did he, how did he get so deep in? And how is it that we're one of only two countries on earth that allows pharmaceutical companies to advertise?

John Abramson (1:08)

Well, let's start with that question.

Joe Rogan (1:09)

Yeah, let's do that.

John Abramson (1:11)

So it's the United States and New Zealand allowed drug companies to advertise, but New Zealand has very active oversight of its pharmaceutical program, active oversight of the evaluation of the efficacy of the drugs and whether the pricing of the drugs is reasonable. So it turns out that even though we in New Zealand allow drug advertising, New Zealand spends the least per person amongst developed countries and we spend the most by far.

Joe Rogan (1:40)

So is, has there ever been a conversation like whether it's publicly or privately that you know of where they've tried to stop this?

Is this one of those things that once it gets into play, once there is a law that allows pharmaceutical drug companies to sponsor or to advertise, are we doomed then? Because then the amount of money that's involved in advertising and when you see those brought to you by Pfizer, those CNN commercials and when you see the, whether it's for allergy medications or anti-depressants, the sheer volume of money that's involved, it seems like extracting that from our system would be very difficult to manage because they're going to fight tooth and claw to keep that in.

John Abramson (2:30)

Absolutely. So, as best I understand it from the lawyers who do understand it, in our constitution, the advertising of prescription drugs falls under the free speech mandate of our constitution. And some things, you can control the advertising of cigarettes and alcohol. There's no beneficial use of those. They can be recreational, but there's no absolute benefit to them. But with drugs, there is an absolute benefit. And because of that, they qualify as protected under the First Amendment. However, that said, the floodgates were opened. And it's clear that the drug company is going to spend as much advertising, however many billions of dollars they want, to make as much money as they can.

But there's nothing that says the drug ads need to be allowed, we need to allow them to be misleading.

So, you never see in a drug ad that you have to treat 323 people with trulicity for a year to prevent one cardiovascular event. They don't tell you that. They tell you trulicity for diabetes prevents cardiovascular events in diabetics.

But if they said you have to treat 323 people to get one better and the other 322 aren't going to have a cardiovascular benefit, then you'd be delivering information that people can use. And if you said that you can't play violins or have family picnics while you're reciting all the side effects, then people would listen to the side effects. So I think the key is that the drug companies know how to use the ads very skillful to manipulate people on an emotional level.

And we don't have to settle for that. We can have, you want to advertise drugs? Okay, let's decide what facts need to be told about this. Is this better than other therapies? Is this better than lifestyle intervention? How much does it cost? How many people do you need to treat in order for one to get better? I think if that information were included in the ads, they'd be much less, the cost benefit of the ads would be reduced or the benefit cost ratio would be reduced for the drug companies. And then they wouldn't advertise so much. But right now, they can make these ads that make anything look great and make people want them and make people go to their doctor and ask for them and they make a ton of money.

Joe Rogan (5:13)

Yeah, it just doesn't seem like it should have a place.