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Speaker 1: All media.

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Speaker 2: Oh we are back.

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Speaker 3: This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast with doctor tave

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Speaker 3: Hoda and Robert Evans where Sophie is out of the

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Speaker 3: house right now, so you know, we're.

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Speaker 4: Just just the boys.

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Speaker 2: The boys. No girls allowed listeners.

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Speaker 3: That's like half our listeners. Please keep listening, ladies.

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Speaker 4: Sorry, so sorry, We're we're trying to be better. I apologize.

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Speaker 4: We didn't mean that.

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Speaker 3: We didn't mean that, just like MRK didn't mean to

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Speaker 3: kill all those people that they're about to kill thanks

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Speaker 3: part to utilizing Dorothy Hamil's star appeal. Poor Dorothy, she

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Speaker 3: really did not. Again, it's one of those things where

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Speaker 3: it's like, we just shouldn't have pharmaceutical ads like the

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Speaker 3: way that we have them, because you can't. Dorothy Hamil's

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Speaker 3: was a great figure skater. Nothing in her life preparedared

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Speaker 3: her to adequately vet whether or not yacks was a

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Speaker 3: safe medication to advertise, no can't, we can't put that

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Speaker 3: on Dorothy Hamil.

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Speaker 4: No part of her training of her many hours prepared

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Speaker 4: her to look critically at the data that was available

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Speaker 4: to her. What was available to her, she wasn't even

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Speaker 4: available to her.

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Speaker 3: She wasn't getting up at four in the morning every day.

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Speaker 3: Is it like adolescent girl to have like the Cox two?

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Speaker 3: And Zime explained to her, like.

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Speaker 5: No, no, that was like me, yeah, not her. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: we had different paths different You're a terrible figure skater,

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Speaker 5: not that bad. Okay, I have never seen you figure

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Speaker 5: I've never seen you figure skate can.

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Speaker 4: Cow maybe sure? Is that like a skateboarding move?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Probably Yeah.

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Speaker 3: This has been skate talk with Robert and Cava to

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Speaker 3: people who probably don't skate. So when we left our

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Speaker 3: heroes at Bios, they just latched upon the brilliant of

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Speaker 3: having Dorothy Hamill sell box. If you've been wondering how

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Speaker 3: tens of millions of your fellow countrymen could be convinced

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Speaker 3: to vote for a guy like Trump, just remember that

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Speaker 3: an awful lot of them saw a video of a

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Speaker 3: figure skater promising she knew a solution to their chronic

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Speaker 3: pain issues and desperate for relief. Millions of people followed

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Speaker 3: her to their demise. Like that really does explain a lot. Now,

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Speaker 3: in fairness, very few people are doctors. It is unreasonable

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Speaker 3: to expect people who are hurting and in some cases

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Speaker 3: literally being driven mad by pain to personally overcome the

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Speaker 3: weight of a multimillion dollar ad campaign and all of

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Speaker 3: the science washing that a big pharmaceutical company can do.

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Speaker 3: In fact, during the early years of iax's success, it

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Speaker 3: would have seemed as if Cox two inhibitors were medical

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Speaker 3: marvels backed by the best science, and it would have

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Speaker 3: seemed that if you were someone who did what should

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Speaker 3: be like the responsible amount of reading on this subject,

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Speaker 3: not like the amount of reading that we could expect

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Speaker 3: from like a research scientist, because research scientist who we're responsible,

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Speaker 3: knew the dangers. But if you were, say, like a

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Speaker 3: normal educated person who's like, oh, well, I'm going to

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Speaker 3: read a paper of record and they're reporting on these

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Speaker 3: new drugs written by a medical doctor interviewing other medical doctors.

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Speaker 3: That's really all you, as a layman, should be.

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Speaker 6: Expected to do to try to figure out, you know,

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Speaker 6: how safe a medication is.

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Speaker 3: And if you were doing that with viox, you would

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Speaker 3: have walked away misinformed. And this brings us to one

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Speaker 3: of the chief medical merchants of viox disinfo, a Harvard

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Speaker 3: Medical School professor named doctor Jerome Grutman. He had embarked

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Speaker 3: on a career as what you might call a professional

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Speaker 3: semi celebrity doctor authoring articles for The New Yorker about

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Speaker 3: health and the pharmaceutical industry, which he does today. Doctor

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Speaker 3: Grutman is not someone who you would call the crank.

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Speaker 3: He served in the advisory board of the National Heart, Lung,

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Speaker 3: and Blood Association. He was the Dina and Raphael Recanati

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Speaker 3: Chair of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He'd worked at

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Speaker 3: a high level for the s and was a listed

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Speaker 3: author on some one hundred and fifty papers. One of

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Speaker 3: his books had been adapted into a TV show, Gideon's Crossing,

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Speaker 3: which I didn't expect to run into a Gideon's Crossing

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Speaker 3: references amiteral on this episode. It wasn't great, as tom

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Speaker 3: NeSSI writes in the book Poison Pills, even among top

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Speaker 3: level physicians who are generally known as opinion or thought leaders,

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Speaker 3: Groupman stands out it was no small matter. Therefore, when

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Speaker 3: he wrote a linky article for The New Yorker in

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Speaker 3: June of nineteen ninety eight entitled super aspirin new arthritis

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Speaker 3: drug Celebra. Celebra was the name for the drug lender

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Speaker 3: and as celebres, and very close in composition to viox.

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Speaker 3: The article had been carefully authenticated by the famous fact

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Speaker 3: checking department of The New Yorker, which is an almost

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Speaker 3: perfect record of verifying every piece of information the magazine publishes.

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Speaker 3: Like Hamill, Groupman began his discussion of super aspirin with

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Speaker 3: a personal story. He himself had suffered debilitating pain brought

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Speaker 3: on by oarthritis developed while training for the Boston Marathon.

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Speaker 3: Despite years of searching for relief, he had found no

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Speaker 3: satisfactory remedy. How or remarkable new class of drugs was

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Speaker 3: offering hope to people like him and millions of others,

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Speaker 3: and Groupman provided the anecdotal story of a firefighter from

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Speaker 3: Nebraska whose arthritis had been alleviated miraculously thanks to super aspirin.

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Speaker 3: A responsible scientist would note that the anecdotal evidence was

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Speaker 3: more fit for a pharmaceutical commercial than an article in

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Speaker 3: The New Yorker by a doctor. But doctor Grupman did

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Speaker 3: speak with other medical experts, like Harvard's doctor Lee Simon,

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Speaker 3: who had a seat on the FDA's Arthritis Advisory Committee

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Speaker 3: and had been part of an FDA panel to evaluate

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Speaker 3: how to approve super aspirins. This probably shouldn't have been

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Speaker 3: allowed to happen because while he was sitting on that

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Speaker 3: FDA panel deciding how to approve these medications. Doctor Simon

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Speaker 3: was also a paid employee of Seerle conducting clinical trials

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Speaker 3: for celebres. He did not disclose this conflict of interest,

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Speaker 3: and doctor Grutman's article did not make any note of

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Speaker 3: this fact that might have compromised a source's objectivity.

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Speaker 4: That's actually pretty shocking, I have to say. I mean,

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Speaker 4: because I mean, I know it's not a medical journal

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Speaker 4: that he's writing in, but that is like the New

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Speaker 4: Yorker though, Like I mean, yeah, you would think he

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Speaker 4: would he would know, he should know better. Like that

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Speaker 4: is like if you write anything. I wrote a piece

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Speaker 4: in the BMJ recently, and I had to disclose everything,

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Speaker 4: including who I was voting for, yeah, you know, in

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Speaker 4: the election. So it's like in who I donated money

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Speaker 4: to in the election. So that's pretty shocking to me that,

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Speaker 4: like they did not require.

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Speaker 3: That, they didn't require that. It's unclear to me if

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Speaker 3: Grutman knew that doctor Simon was a plaid employee of Cerle.

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Speaker 3: But I don't think Grutman is doing as much of

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Speaker 3: his due diligence as he ought to. Saw what Simon

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Speaker 3: is doing is obviously the more shady of the thing, but.

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Speaker 2: It's one of those this is what I say.

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Speaker 3: What I'm like, you really I just made that comment

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Speaker 3: about like people being led by a figure skater, but like, yeah, again,

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Speaker 3: if you're if you're doing your research, you could still

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Speaker 3: get misled about this stuff, right, absolutely.

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Speaker 4: I mean by a Harvard doctor. I mean, if COVID

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Speaker 4: has done nothing else. It has also raised some doubts about,

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Speaker 4: you know, the reputation of places here in the Bay Area,

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Speaker 4: like UCS, SAT and Stanford where a lot of you know,

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Speaker 4: anti vaccine cranks seem to be coming out of. So like,

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Speaker 4: it's not totally shocking to me that it's Harvard, you know,

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Speaker 4: but I could absolutely see the danger in someone with

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Speaker 4: a name that big, the H bomb you dropping there,

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Speaker 4: leading people to believe this this in New York must

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Speaker 4: be right, the intellectual elites, you know, leading them all

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Speaker 4: to believe the safety of it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And and Simon's quotes in The New Yorker are It's

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Speaker 3: one of those things. He's really relying a lot on

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Speaker 3: the fact that he's this fancy Harvard doctor, because the

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Speaker 3: shit he is actually saying in this article is shit

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Speaker 3: no doctor should ever say. He described celebrates as incredible

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Speaker 3: and told doctor Grutman that unique among all other medications

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Speaker 3: ever created, it had no side effects whatsoever. Specific they stated,

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Speaker 3: there are no side effects, which most don't exist. You

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Speaker 3: might not experience side eft, but someone will. There's no

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Speaker 3: drug that has zero side effects of any kind.

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Speaker 4: It's not a drug. If it's if I am doing

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Speaker 4: the safest procedure in the world, I am never ever

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Speaker 4: gonna say this is no risk because that's like jinxing it.

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Speaker 4: Why would you do that. You never do that. It's

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Speaker 4: just stupid. It's untrue.

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Speaker 2: That is zero shocking.

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Speaker 4: I mean, this is maybe that's a big old red flag. Wow. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: And this is.

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Speaker 3: This is I think where it gets into like the

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Speaker 3: value of actually having a higher level of like kind

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Speaker 3: of medical like medical even training. It may not be

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Speaker 3: totally the right world, but like word, but like in school,

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Speaker 3: so that because that's the sort of thing it is

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Speaker 3: easy to like train people to have people in general,

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Speaker 3: Layman be aware of, like, oh, if I see that,

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Speaker 3: if I see somebody claiming there are zero side effects

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Speaker 3: for anyone of this medication, that's something you shouldn't That's sketchy.

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Speaker 3: You know, absolutely so, Asnessi notes, this should have been

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Speaker 3: a massive and immediate red flag, just as we noted.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, Doctor Grutman's article cited other medical experts making

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Speaker 3: similarly dubious claims. He quoted another Harvard professor, doctor Clifford Saper,

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Speaker 3: as saying super aspirin might hold the key to treating Alzheimer's. Now,

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Speaker 3: this is a case where there was not evidence that

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Speaker 3: it had efficacy treating Alzheimer's. Doctor Saper had a theory

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Speaker 3: that inflammation in the brain caused by injured neurons led

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Speaker 3: to swelling the damaged brains, and that as a result,

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Speaker 3: viox might help. Right, And that's a perfectly valid thing

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Speaker 3: to want to test.

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Speaker 4: Right, yea.

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Speaker 3: But you shouldn't go out an article be like this

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Speaker 3: might here Alzheimer's based on that, because that's just a theory, right.

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Speaker 4: And you know, and it's read, it's read by people

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Speaker 4: understandably who are going to then relate it to somebody

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Speaker 4: else as this is what it does. This is like

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Speaker 4: we think it does this, and like there's so many steps.

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Speaker 4: There's so many steps. There's years of steps between point

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Speaker 4: A and point B, and that.

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Speaker 3: Yep, and yeah so quote. Doctor Saper said that celebrc's

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Speaker 3: probest to break open the vicious cycle of inflammation in Alzheimer's.

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Speaker 3: Quite an astonishing statement of itself, and even more so

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Speaker 3: since he did not cite results of a single human study.

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Speaker 3: Yet the claim is part of an age old school

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Speaker 3: of medical thinking that holds that logic in what makes

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Speaker 3: sense or rational therapy should dictate the practice of medicine.

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Speaker 3: But rational therapy needs to be buttressed by randomized, controlled

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Speaker 3: human trials to determine what is and what is not

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Speaker 3: effective treatment. That's from the book Poison Pills Now. Theorizing

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Speaker 3: like Sabrid did is of course part of the medical process,

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Speaker 3: but maybe not one that should be presented to the

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Speaker 3: public in a widely read article where like people who've

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Speaker 3: got loved ones suffering from Alzheimer's are going to be like,

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Speaker 3: oh my god, a miracle drug might be coming through. No,

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Speaker 3: even if it works, it's fucking fifteen years out or whatever,

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Speaker 3: like from you know. Grutman's article also wildly exaggerated the

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Speaker 3: harms of existing insets like Motrin and advil, failing to

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Speaker 3: discuss newer versions that had been approved and came with

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Speaker 3: fewer of the side effects that so called super aspirin

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Speaker 3: was meant to avoid. In his article, Grupman cited the

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Speaker 3: work of doctor James Frees, a professor at Stanford at length.

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Speaker 3: Freese himself claims Grutmann distorted his research in order to

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Speaker 3: make claims that Freese was not making about Cox two inhibitors. Now,

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Speaker 3: doctor Grutman was not being bribed by merk nor did

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Speaker 3: he violate the law or medical ethics in any way

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Speaker 3: that I'm aware of other than writing a bad article.

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Speaker 3: He fucked up, and part of why he fucked up was,

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Speaker 3: in my opinion, he was looking to merge developing medical

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Speaker 3: science with magazine Pop Science in a way that's not

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Speaker 3: wildly different from what Malcolm Gladwell is going to be

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Speaker 3: doing a few years later.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 3: I think that's irresponsible, but not malicious or outright criminal. Right,

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Speaker 3: And we are talking about some people who did outrite

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Speaker 3: criminal acts in this. I want to make it clear,

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Speaker 3: I am not accusing doctor Grutman of doing anything criminal

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Speaker 3: the same but not But.

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Speaker 4: It's a slippery slope. It is, I mean it.

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Speaker 3: Is, and see why it leads to people doing it.

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Speaker 4: You know, And I've said this to you before too.

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Speaker 4: It's like I think in the past, you know, when

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Speaker 4: I was earlier in my medical training of my career,

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Speaker 4: I didn't care that much about things like that. I

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Speaker 4: would probably read it and be like, what is he saying?

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Speaker 4: What does he mean? Forget it and let it go,

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Speaker 4: not worry about that much. But this is how it starts.

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Speaker 4: This is how it starts. It raises enough doubt, it

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Speaker 4: raises enough like it makes it vague enough, it makes

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Speaker 4: it cloudy enough that it's hard for people to know

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Speaker 4: what is real and what isn't real. And this is

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Speaker 4: where medical information, like the roots of it begin. It

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Speaker 4: begins in good places sometimes like a Harvard doctor.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's the same thing where we have

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Speaker 3: this problem in journalism.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 3: There's a great movie called Shattered Glass starring Haymen Christensen

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Speaker 3: about about a journalist for the New Republic who was

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Speaker 3: like their star reporter, super young, and it turned out

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Speaker 3: all of his stories he was just making them up,

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Speaker 3: like complete bullshit, like literally just inventing people and things

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Speaker 3: in order to write entertaining stories. The New York Times

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Speaker 3: a little bit later had another reporter get blown up.

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Speaker 3: A star reporter for the same thing, just completely lying

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Speaker 3: about shit, tricking fact checkers, and it's one of those

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Speaker 3: things doesn't have to happen all that often for people

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Speaker 3: to be like, well, then these outlets are no better

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Speaker 3: than whatever like weird fucking conspiracy, rag info wars or

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Speaker 3: whatever that I like. And you know what, that's kind

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Speaker 3: of on the journalists for fucking up in that way, right,

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Speaker 3: that's on the newsroom, that's on the editors. That's on

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Speaker 3: to people wanting these big stories that are exciting and

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Speaker 3: that get eyeballs on. Right here, you kind of have

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Speaker 3: the merger of the two. Right, the New Yorker wants

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Speaker 3: an article that gets a lot of people to read it,

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Speaker 3: because fuck, this is a miracle medicine that might help

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Speaker 3: me and my loved ones with things that are really

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Speaker 3: like causing us problems. And as the doctor, you want

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Speaker 3: to be the first. You want to be the doctor

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Speaker 3: who kind of establishes himself as like, I'm kind of

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Speaker 3: on the ground floor of this breaking for people.

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Speaker 4: I'm here right treat people. And there's going to be

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Speaker 4: people who are going to be upset if Celebrates goes

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Speaker 4: away or if these medications go away, because there are

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Speaker 4: people out there who like, this is the one that

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Speaker 4: works for me.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, fucked so again. I just made the point that

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Speaker 3: Grupman was not breaking the law. The same cannot be

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Speaker 3: said for the next doctor we're going to discuss, an

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Speaker 3: anesthesiologist named Scott Rubin. Starting in the year two thousand,

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Speaker 3: Rubin published what would become twenty one papers claiming to

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Speaker 3: show evidence that COX two inhibitors performed better than nonsteroidal

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Speaker 3: anti inflammatory drugs for patients who'd received orthopedic surgery. Now,

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Speaker 3: the last episode we mostly focused on Murk, and we

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Speaker 3: will later in this one as the bulk of the

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Speaker 3: blame lies with them. But our old friends at Pfiser

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Speaker 3: don't have totally clean clean hands.

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Speaker 4: Here.

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Speaker 3: Ruben was largely pushing a line that Peiser's product celebrates

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Speaker 3: was a game changer, and that it was when it

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Speaker 3: was paired with neurontin and Lyrica, both Pheiser products together

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Speaker 3: they safely reduced post operative pain and could help eliminate

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Speaker 3: the need for dangerous addictive drugs like morphine after surgery.

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Speaker 3: Piser funded a great deal of Reuben's research from two

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Speaker 3: thousand and two to two thousand and seven, effectively picking

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Speaker 3: him up after he'd established himself as an expert in

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Speaker 3: the burgeoning field of COX two inhibitor research. The good

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Speaker 3: news is that, in the field Reuben attempted to influence

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Speaker 3: orthopedic surgery, his work had less of an influence than

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Speaker 3: he'd hoped. Most surgeons hesitated to switch to COX two

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Speaker 3: inhibitors because some very good animal studies showed they slowed

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Speaker 3: the rate at which bones heel, which is kind of

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Speaker 3: a big deal if you're in the orthopedic surgery business.

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Speaker 4: Wow, I'm just impressed that the orthopedic surgeons were reading anything. Hey, sorry,

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Speaker 4: big the orthopedic surgeons.

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Speaker 3: Speaking of orthopedic surgeons. They don't listen to podcasts, so

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Speaker 3: fuck them. Here's some ads.

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Speaker 2: And we're back.

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Speaker 3: If you're an orthopedic surgeon, hit me up. I got

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Speaker 3: too many bones. I could use a couple less. Probably, so,

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Speaker 3: Ruben's work formed an influential mass of positive seeming scientific

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Speaker 3: pr arguing in favor of drugs like Biax and celebrates

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Speaker 3: as safer super aspirins. An article in Scientific American notes.

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Speaker 3: A two thousand and seven editorial in Anesthesia and Analgesia

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Speaker 3: stated that Ruben had been at the forefront of redesigning

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Speaker 3: pain management protocols through his carefully planned and meticulously documented studies.

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Speaker 4: Was to say that him he called his own studies.

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Speaker 3: No, that's what the an editorial to how like the

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Speaker 3: editors of the paper described him. And there's only one

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Speaker 3: problem with these carefully the twenty or so carefully planned

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Speaker 3: and meticulously documented studies that he had authored over a

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Speaker 3: twelve year period, they were all complete bullshit, fraudulent in

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Speaker 3: every way. Now, we will talk more about Reuben later

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Speaker 3: because a lot of history occurs after the collapse of Yox,

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Speaker 3: But it's important to note that Justice Pfeiser underwrote ruben

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Speaker 3: shoddy research. Murk had deeply questionable science that they funded

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Speaker 3: in an equally dubious way. Back during the FDA approval process,

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Speaker 3: Merk had launched a strategy called Advantage in all caps

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Speaker 3: because it was a very tortured acronym assessment differences between

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Speaker 3: biox and neproxyen to ascertain gastronomical tolerability and effectiveness. An

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Speaker 3: analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists describes the goal

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Speaker 3: of Advantage as using flawed methodologies toward bias towards predetermined

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Speaker 3: results to exaggerate the drug's positive effects. Quote as part

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Speaker 3: of their strategy, scientists manipulated the trial data by comparing

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Speaker 3: the drug to neproxen, a pain reliever sold under brand

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Speaker 3: name such as a leave rather than a placebo. And yeah,

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Speaker 3: we covered that a little earlier. But what's important is

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Speaker 3: that we now know that Merk had a great deal

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Speaker 3: of evidence when they were pushing this study suggesting that

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Speaker 3: like viox massively increased the risk of cardiovascular events, which

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Speaker 3: makes the case that this was not just something where

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Speaker 3: they did a bad study and put this thing next

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Speaker 3: to to proxen and it looked less risky than it

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Speaker 3: does because it was next to a proxy and they

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Speaker 3: conducted that study with new proxyen because they had data

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Speaker 3: showing that viox massively increased the risk of heart attacks,

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Speaker 3: and they were deliberately trying to hide that.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 3: This is all stuff that came out later as a

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Speaker 3: result of the Senate investigation and numerous court cases. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: we know that Mark had a lot of evidence showing

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Speaker 3: this was dangerous and they deliberately hit it. And we

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Speaker 3: know that this was incredibly profitable for Merk. From nineteen

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Speaker 3: ninety nine to two thousand and four, Viox made them

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Speaker 3: two and a half billion dollars a year on average.

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Speaker 3: It swiftly became the best selling drug in MRK history

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Speaker 3: and one of the best selling drugs of all time,

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Speaker 3: and just as swiftly, it started to kill people. One

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Speaker 3: of the first to die was Bob Ernst. He was

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Speaker 3: a fit, fifty nine year old triathlete who started taking

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Speaker 3: biox because of recurrent arthritic pain in his hand. His wife,

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Speaker 3: Carol had urged him to try ViOS after seeing an

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Speaker 3: ad and Bob had gone on the medication. On May sixth,

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Speaker 3: two thousand and one, the two at an anniversary date

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Speaker 3: at an olive garden in Keene, Texas. Bob passed away

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Speaker 3: in his sleep later that night, dead from heart failure. Now,

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Speaker 3: Bob had been in very good shape, but the death

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Speaker 3: of a fifty nine year old man from heart failure

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Speaker 3: is simply not the kind of thing that most pathologists

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Speaker 3: are going to consider super suspicious. It was Carol herself

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Speaker 3: who got suspicious, so since started digging into Bob's one

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Speaker 3: medications is the only thing. He was prescribed biox. Even

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Speaker 3: as early as two thousand and one, there were studies

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Speaker 3: showing that Vyas was bad for heart health. Murck had

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Speaker 3: successfully buried many of them, but there was still stuff

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Speaker 3: that you could find with enough digging online. And that's

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Speaker 3: exactly what his wife did. She found a lawyer, Mark Lanier,

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Speaker 3: who made to take her case. In the book Poison

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Speaker 3: Pill does a wonderful job of chronicling the work that

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Speaker 3: they did. I'm going to have to give you a

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Speaker 3: summary here, which is that in August of two thousand

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Speaker 3: and five, a Texas state jury awarded almost twenty five

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Speaker 3: million dollars to Carol Earnst in compensatory damages and more

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Speaker 3: than two hundred million impunitive damages.

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Speaker 2: Now that latter a.

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Speaker 3: Matt verdict was lowered quite a bit due to a

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Speaker 3: Texas law, but would be fair to call this a

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Speaker 3: massive victory against Merk, and much of the case against

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Speaker 3: Merk hinged on the fact that in June of two thousand,

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Speaker 3: Merck had provided a tranch of early user data to

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Speaker 3: the FDA that revealed vyox users had four times as

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Speaker 3: many heart attacks as people on the prox and they

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Speaker 3: didn't state this though this was in the data. You

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Speaker 3: could find it if you analyze the data, but it

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Speaker 3: was not in any of the conclusions that like Merk

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Speaker 3: sent along to the FDA. And the FDA really just

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Speaker 3: didn't do the work to actually like figure this out

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Speaker 3: very quickly, and so it wasn't until fourteen months later

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Speaker 3: in April of two thousand and two that the FDA

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Speaker 3: actually forced through changes and how viox was labeled to

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Speaker 3: reflect the evidence of risk. Merk took no action on

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Speaker 3: their own to warn users about the fact that they

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Speaker 3: knew that viox was causing heart attacks. Now, in the

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Speaker 3: Leader trial that would develop from all this, CEO Raymond

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Speaker 3: Gilmartin would claim that Vyox wanted to add a warning

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Speaker 3: label the instant they were aware of the danger. This

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Speaker 3: was a lie, as Cope and Barry Wright in their

407
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Speaker 3: article Mirk in the Viox Debacle. Lanier, that's the lawyer

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Speaker 3: introduced in the Ernst trial internal Mirk documents, which revealed

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Speaker 3: that Merck resisted the FDA's efforts to add warnings to

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Speaker 3: Vyax's label and eventually complied in ways that the Ernst

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Speaker 3: jury found obscure. You had to dig three levels to

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Speaker 3: see it, one juror stated in March two thousand, when

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Speaker 3: Merk became aware of the Vigor studies findings of a

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Speaker 3: significant increase in cardiovascular events for those taking vax over

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Speaker 3: into Prox, and Merks scientists expressed concern. In an email

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Speaker 3: message written in March of two thousand, Doctor Edward Skolnik,

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Speaker 3: who was then Merk's head of research, stated the Vigor

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Speaker 3: clinical trial had shown that vyax increased heart risks. The

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Speaker 3: CV events were clearly there, he wrote, despite clear warnings,

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Speaker 3: Merk Deskis decided against conducting studies on the heart attack

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Speaker 3: risks because the marketing executives worried it might hurt Biox sales.

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Speaker 3: Internal mIRC analyzes in two thousand and two thousand, two,

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Speaker 3: two thousand and one, and two thousand and two showed

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Speaker 3: that Merk was worried about lost profits if warnings or

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Speaker 3: precautions were put on its label. During that period, Mirk

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Speaker 3: was in private negotiations with the FDA over changes to

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Speaker 3: its Yox label. David Anstis, who at that time was

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Speaker 3: the president of Merk's Human Health division, projected that a

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Speaker 3: strict warning would reduce sales by at least fifty percent

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Speaker 3: after the Vigor study findings in March of two thousand.

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Speaker 3: A second internal mIRC analysis performed in October two thousand

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Speaker 3: showed a significant increase in cardiovascular events for those taking vyox.

433
00:21:35,960 --> 00:21:39,320
Speaker 3: The mIRC analysis plaintiff's atorney Mark Laneer, has argued was

434
00:21:39,359 --> 00:21:42,480
Speaker 3: never presented to the FDA nor the media, and certainly

435
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 3: was not given to the physicians for scribing byox. So

436
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:48,480
Speaker 3: this is entirely the marketing team and the CEO coming

437
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:52,439
Speaker 3: in and saying like this will cut profits, So bury

438
00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:54,600
Speaker 3: it as long as you can. Every additional year we

439
00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:57,440
Speaker 3: get to sell this stuff without a warning. Is worth

440
00:21:57,440 --> 00:21:59,680
Speaker 3: it to us? Right, whatever number of deaths there are,

441
00:22:00,119 --> 00:22:02,560
Speaker 3: the money this is bringing in is so huge, Like

442
00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:05,840
Speaker 3: it's fine, right, that's literally a decision being made.

443
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:08,800
Speaker 4: You know. It's like the what's interesting to me is

444
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:11,919
Speaker 4: looking at these things is what could the FDA have

445
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:15,320
Speaker 4: done better in some of these circumstances. It's hard because

446
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:17,600
Speaker 4: some of the information is just not being given to

447
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:21,119
Speaker 4: them in what seems like a very fraudulent manner. But

448
00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:25,240
Speaker 4: they need to have the power to do certain they

449
00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:27,440
Speaker 4: need to teeth to do certain things. When a drug

450
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:32,119
Speaker 4: is first approved, there's still a lot of unanswered early

451
00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:35,520
Speaker 4: safety questions because for most of the studies that are

452
00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:39,240
Speaker 4: getting them approved, there's like maybe two to four thousand

453
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:43,119
Speaker 4: at most patients in a study. Sometimes oftentimes that's not

454
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:47,000
Speaker 4: enough to see like the safety evidence and what risks

455
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 4: are associated with it. So the FDA has to be

456
00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 4: there pushing to see more data making sure that it

457
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:56,760
Speaker 4: stay safe. Once those numbers come out, they need to

458
00:22:56,760 --> 00:23:00,199
Speaker 4: be there to do the post marketing studies. It's it's

459
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 4: interesting to me to see it's terrifying to me to

460
00:23:03,119 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 4: see going back to what's coming in the future, what's

461
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:08,960
Speaker 4: going to happen to our fdo god and how deregulated

462
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:11,639
Speaker 4: it's going to become, and to see what they're going

463
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:14,920
Speaker 4: to be able accomplish. It's it's going to be I mean,

464
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 4: I just I mean, I hate to say it, but

465
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:21,600
Speaker 4: I think we're going to see more drug induced injuries

466
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:25,200
Speaker 4: than ever before because more medicines are going to be

467
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 4: coming out and few of them are going to have

468
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 4: the post marketing studies to prove it.

469
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:33,959
Speaker 3: And that's that's what's fucking scary, right is that, like

470
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,440
Speaker 3: we're talking, this is a massive failure by the FDA too.

471
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 3: That happened when it was funded, right, like we can

472
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 3: argue should have been funded more, but like that happened

473
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:47,080
Speaker 3: in a period totally different from the one we're entering into. Now, Like,

474
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 3: what kind of shit is going to go come by

475
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:53,440
Speaker 3: now that there's there's no guardrails on any of this stuff, right,

476
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:56,400
Speaker 3: Like these fucking MBAs who are managing all of these

477
00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:01,199
Speaker 3: pharmaceutical companies have absolutely and these marketers have absolutely no

478
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:04,919
Speaker 3: restrictions anything that they can shovel into people's faces to

479
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:05,640
Speaker 3: make a profit.

480
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 4: It's funny. I'm like, you know, I get a lot

481
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:12,520
Speaker 4: of shit online for being like a pharma shill because, like,

482
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 4: you know, I promote vaccines, like because they work and

483
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,880
Speaker 4: they're great, and you know, I can go into that

484
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 4: in great detail if you like. But like, the the

485
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:26,399
Speaker 4: funny thing is the people, those people who are so

486
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 4: against drug companies, so few of them are against drug

487
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,919
Speaker 4: companies for the right reason, for reasons like this. You know,

488
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,640
Speaker 4: when there's real reason to be mad about pharmaceutical companies,

489
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,679
Speaker 4: more people are upset about like the vaccines that have

490
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 4: come out with good data behind them and with good

491
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 4: studies in the limited amount of time that they're able

492
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 4: to do. You know, it is it is hard. It's

493
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:53,160
Speaker 4: hard for me to wrap my brain around that. How

494
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:57,439
Speaker 4: I have to be the one defending pharmacuol companies and

495
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:00,199
Speaker 4: I'm asked, skeptical of them as anybody, Yeah, because of

496
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 4: shit like this and then stuff we've seen.

497
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 3: Like this, and it's yeah, it's just fucking I mean,

498
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 3: what's coming is going to be sick folks in a

499
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:12,439
Speaker 3: very literal term. But what happened in the past was

500
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 3: pretty sick too. So it took about four years for

501
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 3: the Carol Ernst legal case to wind on against Bios

502
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 3: right from her realizing there was probably something wrong with

503
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 3: her husband's medication to actually getting a victory, which is

504
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 3: actually pretty quick for one of these lawsuits.

505
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 4: Ye.

506
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 3: The company continued to push the mountain of disinformation during

507
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 3: this time about their new star medications dangers. One February

508
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 3: two thousand and one sales memorandum for bade sales rep

509
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 3: from discussions on a study that raised heart concerns when

510
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 3: they talk to physicians. Right, can't talk about this study

511
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:45,720
Speaker 3: about heart attacks from our medication when you sell it

512
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:49,680
Speaker 3: to doctors. Salespersons were also ordered to avoid discussing heart

513
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:53,159
Speaker 3: health risks and instead hand over a cardiovascular card to

514
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 3: physicians which said Vyox is protecting the heart rather than

515
00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:01,120
Speaker 3: potentially harming it. To take care of all of their

516
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:03,919
Speaker 3: questions oh good, you give me a card. Well, you

517
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 3: got you guys got card money. There must be nothing

518
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:10,640
Speaker 3: wrong with this stuff could afford this kind of embossing.

519
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 3: My god, look at that. It's okay, guys, they gave

520
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 3: me a card.

521
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 4: Good.

522
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 3: The Ernst lawsuit was not the first or last against Mirk.

523
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:22,919
Speaker 3: Most were brought by survivors of heart attacks or morole

524
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 3: and the family members of people who had perished. Mirk

525
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 3: upped their game, as this passage from Colpenberry's article makes clear,

526
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 3: Mirk prepared an in house training game for Vyox sales representatives,

527
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 3: dubbed Dodgeball. Sales trainees could only move on to the

528
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 3: next round of the card game if they gave Merk

529
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 3: approved answers to doctors questions raising Vyox safety concerns, or

530
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 3: dodged such questions altogether.

531
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 4: Wow, dodgeball.

532
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 2: They're literally playing.

533
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 3: Dodgeball with their death medicine, you know, questions about their

534
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:54,920
Speaker 3: death medicine.

535
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,880
Speaker 4: It is death medicine. It is interesting. Like they they

536
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 4: the way they train their reps, like they train them

537
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 4: to deal with different types of doctors. They're very smart.

538
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 4: They recognize that there's like four or five different types

539
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 4: of doctors and They range from like the owl, which

540
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 4: is like the name they'd give one when they're training sessions,

541
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 4: which is the guy you want to avoid, the person

542
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 4: you want to avoid because they're going to ask them

543
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,920
Speaker 4: more detailed questions. They're going to keep drilling to get

544
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 4: the answers. And then the one they love are the

545
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 4: ones they call the peacocks, which you just have to

546
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 4: kind of stroke their feathers, tell them they're pretty and smart,

547
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 4: and those are the ones they're going to sell your medication.

548
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 4: I mean they they know the psychology of doctors very well,

549
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 4: probably better than doctors do. So it is there's the

550
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 4: farm reps. It's changed maybe a little bit, but this

551
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 4: was this was like the most evil time of the

552
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 4: farm reps. Oh, they had the most power and doctors

553
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 4: were the least prepared to deal with. Right. Right.

554
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 3: It's also this kind of like there's less of an

555
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,120
Speaker 3: inbuilt like immunity within the medical community because you guys

556
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 3: weren't used to being sold to this way. Yeah, it's

557
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 3: like when they first started getting Americans hooked on cigarettes,

558
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 3: and like people had never seen an advertisement before and

559
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 3: they're like a cowboy, well I'm buying a cigarette now,

560
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 3: So a later congressional inquiry found that Merk leadership divided

561
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 3: the studies on vyos into approved and background studies, and

562
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 3: any study that showed a danger to heart health was

563
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 3: considered a background study, and so their salespeople were forbidden

564
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 3: to discuss them with doctors. This was a violation of

565
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 3: company policy now all through two thousand and one. In

566
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 3: two thousand and two, the FDA sent letters to Merk

567
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 3: poking at it for failing to properly disclose the dangers

568
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 3: of viox, but it still took again fourteen months for

569
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 3: any sort of labeling change to be mandated. Part of

570
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:48,719
Speaker 3: why is that officials within the FDA were in the

571
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,239
Speaker 3: tank for Merk, not all of them, but enough. At

572
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 3: later Senate committee investigations, an FDA scientist testified that he

573
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 3: had brought forward concerns about viox to his superiors and

574
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 3: been pressured to shut up. Another researcher who had gone

575
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 3: to the FDA with complaints was Girk and Paul Singh,

576
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 3: a Stanford professor who claimed that a Merck senior executive

577
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 3: complained to his superiors at the university when he reported

578
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 3: yox to the FDA. Singh claimed I was warned that

579
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 3: if I persisted in this fashion, there would be serious

580
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 3: consequences for me, because, of course MRK has the ability

581
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 3: to donate a lot of money to a university like Stanford.

582
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 3: Now still, some brave academics continued to blow the whistle,

583
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 3: as this paragraph from a New York Times article by

584
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 3: Alex Berenson, Gardner, Harris, and Barry Meyers summarizes. In two

585
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 3: thousand and one, the first major study critical of the

586
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 3: drugs appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

587
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 3: The report, written by Eric J. Tapol, and cardiologist at

588
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 3: the Cleveland Clinic, reanalyzed data from several clinical trials of

589
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 3: viox and celebrates. It reported that both drugs appeared to

590
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 3: increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, but that

591
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 3: the danger from biox appeared higher. Doctor Tapol, the chairman

592
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 3: of the Clinics Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, immediately called for

593
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 3: trials tol whether or not the drugs increased cardiovascular risk.

594
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 3: Merck and Pfizer both rebuffed that request and said that

595
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 3: the Cleveland Clinic report was flawed because it failed to do,

596
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 3: among other things, to include data from other studies. Doctor

597
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 3: Tipol became a harsh critic of both drugs, but his

598
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 3: ire focused on viox and MERK. Even before his two

599
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 3: thousand and one report repaired. He said in a recent

600
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 3: interview that company scientists came to Cleveland to try to

601
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 3: convince him not to publish it. Murk officials denied doing so.

602
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 3: A year later, a study by doctor Wayne Ray, an

603
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 3: epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University, found that medicaid patients in Tennessee

604
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 3: who were taking high doses of vyos greater than the

605
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 3: recommended long term dosage of twenty five milligrams daily had

606
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 3: significantly more heart attacks and strokes than similar patients who

607
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 3: were not taking high doses.

608
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 4: So back when Alex Berenson used to write useful.

609
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 3: Things, Yeah, it's okay, his careers move forward now he

610
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 3: doesn't have to do that anymore.

611
00:30:58,080 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 4: I don't know.

612
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 3: It's all pretty bad, right, Like that's I mean, there's

613
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 3: a degree to which like, at least you can see

614
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 3: these these heroes who tried to do something, even though

615
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 3: you know your university is telling you stop. MRK is

616
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 3: sending scary guys to your door to be like, are

617
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 3: you sure you want to publish that study?

618
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 2: You know?

619
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah it is it is funny, Like I didn't

620
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 4: realize until this how slow moving a car wreck. This

621
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 4: was yes, like this has been this a whole thing.

622
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 4: It's been happening for a while. It's I didn't realize

623
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 4: that it is someone. It's more nefarious than I expect it.

624
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, well because MRK, Like, there's no argument they don't

625
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 3: know exactly what they're doing. They are trading lives for dollars.

626
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 3: The longer they know, eventually, we'll have to stop selling

627
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 3: this stuff because we know how dangerous it is. But

628
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 3: every day we get to keep selling it. We were

629
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 3: recouping that investment. We're making a profit, and whatever we

630
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 3: have to pay out in the end is going to

631
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 3: be less than what we're making.

632
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 4: I wonder how they justified it to themselves.

633
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 2: If they did money money money.

634
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 4: I know, and your listeners are like, what the fuck

635
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 4: is wrong with this guy? What kind of does he

636
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 4: not listen to the show? Does he not understand? But

637
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 4: I mean, like I feel like everybody.

638
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 2: Thinks like sheesh baby.

639
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 4: But like these farm like the people the head of

640
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 4: this farm company they are doing this now are how

641
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 4: like is are they lying to themselves in some way?

642
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 4: And what lie is that? That they're telling themselves. That's

643
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 4: the part I don't understand.

644
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 3: They know who to lie to and not they're lying

645
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 3: I think to a lot of the doctors and to

646
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 3: some of the salespeople. You know, salespeople don't maybe know

647
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 3: how to like analyze whether or not this is a

648
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 3: good study or whatever, so they're just like, oh, those

649
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 3: other studies that showed a danger, they're not good for

650
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 3: this reason or that reason. And like you're just some

651
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 3: fucking sales rep that got hired out of college. Maybe

652
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 3: you don't really give that much of a shit. But

653
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 3: there are people plenty of people who know exactly what

654
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 3: they're doing, right, And like those people who know exactly

655
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 3: what they're doing just don't care. They don't feel bad

656
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 3: about the fact that they're getting people killed.

657
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 4: Right. There's just like in every episode I do, there's

658
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 4: like this one moment where I turn to you and

659
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 4: I'm just like, Robert, why do bad people do bad things?

660
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 4: I just don't understand it. I'm so dumb in that way.

661
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 4: Yeah doesn't.

662
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's not dumb, you just aren't. You

663
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 3: just have a soul and.

664
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 4: I'm working to get rid of it.

665
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well that's that's the only thing that's going to

666
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 3: let us win. We all have to get rid of

667
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 3: our souls today. Which, by the way, I've got a

668
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 3: great new medication for getting rid of your souls. First step,

669
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 3: you're going to go to your local not a local

670
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 3: gas station. Actually, you want to go to a truck

671
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 3: stop about thirty or forty minutes outside of town. Right

672
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 3: if you can actually like see like people like like.

673
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 3: If there's more than a half dozen rigs parked outside,

674
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 3: that's probably a good truck stop. And you're going to

675
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 3: go in there and behind the counter there should be

676
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 3: a wall of pills and you're just going to ask

677
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 3: for all of them, and you pour that into a cup.

678
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 3: And this is critical. You mix it in with mountain

679
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 3: dew code red, not Baja blast. That'll fuck it up.

680
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 3: Do not mix Baja blast in mountain dew code red.

681
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 3: And then shoot that ship as fast as possible. And

682
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 3: that's gonna get rid of your soul. And then you're

683
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:17,840
Speaker 3: ready to join us on the front lines fighting the demons.

684
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 4: Don't don't do that, people.

685
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:23,400
Speaker 3: You'll also be able to see demons. That's that's a promise.

686
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're gonna see some demons.

687
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:31,400
Speaker 6: Yeah, all of that fucking ibagain, or whether they fuck they

688
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:36,719
Speaker 6: put us in those pills, those random trucker pills that

689
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 6: they just they all they almost call them adderall but

690
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 6: not quite.

691
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 4: I want to go check it out now. I mean,

692
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 4: I live in San Francisco, so we don't have like,

693
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,439
Speaker 4: you know, forty minutes outside of town is like another town,

694
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 4: So I gotta like go pretty far.

695
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 3: You gotta go down the five to that place that

696
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,439
Speaker 3: sells split piece soup. Uh and then yeah, yeah, yeah,

697
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 3: you can find there.

698
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, I'm gonna do it. Actually, I think

699
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 4: that's a good day trip.

700
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, this will be good. Let's let's let's go do

701
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 3: it together. We'll buy all the Trucker pills and we'll

702
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 3: see how they.

703
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:08,280
Speaker 4: Work to live stream that. I think that would really.

704
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah. So in late September two thousand

705
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 3: and four, as the death toll mounted and Merk's legal

706
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 3: team was buried in cases, they made the decision to

707
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 3: pull vax off the market all together. This is right

708
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 3: after the case has been decided against them. There is

709
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 3: no longer keeping this cat in the bag, and now

710
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 3: it's about damage control. Their official justification was that they

711
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 3: just had a long term clinical trial which showed that

712
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 3: some patients developed cardiovascular problems after taking the drug for

713
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 3: eighteen months. The data showed fifteen heart attack, strokes or

714
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:41,440
Speaker 3: blood clots per thousand people over three years, compared with

715
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 3: seven and a half cardiac events in the general population.

716
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 3: And even if you believe this Merk study, which I

717
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 3: think is kind of trying to pad how bad it is,

718
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,800
Speaker 3: that's still much worse's that's still.

719
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 2: A real problem.

720
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 3: The stock market reacted first, costing Merk somewhere in the

721
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 3: neighborhood of twenty six billion dollars in a day. But

722
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 3: that's not real money. They get it back, you know

723
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:05,319
Speaker 3: how the stock market works. The next reaction came from

724
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:07,879
Speaker 3: the families of people who died due to viox, leading

725
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 3: to a rush of new lawsuits. But the initial public

726
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 3: reaction was beyond muted. It was, in fact, downright hostile

727
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 3: to the victims. And this likely has something to do

728
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:20,399
Speaker 3: with a particularly toxic aspect of US culture I call

729
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 3: scalding McDonald's coffee syndrome. Now, you probably heard the story

730
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 3: about the woman who had a hot coffee spill in

731
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 3: her lap at McDonald's drive through, and she sued them

732
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 3: and got a bunch of money. This is a thing

733
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:33,320
Speaker 3: that especially when I was younger. I think more people

734
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 3: know their real story now, But you would see viral

735
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 3: memes all the time. You'd see it in like newspapers.

736
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 3: You know, it was really a thing like my parents'

737
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 3: generation loved to hate on. It was particularly a big

738
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 3: thing for like conservatives who were angry at how mean

739
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 3: all these slight, these frivolous lawsuits hurting innocent corporations, Like

740
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 3: this woman spills coffee in her own lap, and like

741
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 3: the reality was McDonald's had the coffee way higher than

742
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 3: they were legally allowed to have it. They should not

743
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 3: have been selling or handing people coffee hot and it

744
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 3: gave her third degree burns to like her entire genital area.

745
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 3: Like it was a hideous, hideous, life altering injury that

746
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 3: she suffered because they were not doing what they legally

747
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:11,959
Speaker 3: should have been doing. Anyway, we don't need to rant

748
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,399
Speaker 3: on this, but at the time this happens, a lot

749
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 3: less people realize the true story there, and so there

750
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,839
Speaker 3: is this big backlash against frivolous lawsuits against companies and

751
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 3: what the murk vax lawsuits initially get lost in that right.

752
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 3: When Carol von Ernst won her case against Merk, A

753
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:32,840
Speaker 3: lot of pundits of the day kind of looped this

754
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 3: in with the McDonald's coffee case as another example of

755
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 3: our sue happy culture run amok. From the book Poison Pills,

756
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 3: Carol Earnst. Lawyer Mark Lanier was blasted by everyone from

757
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 3: physicians to newspaper columnists for winning the trial by twisting

758
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:48,360
Speaker 3: the facts and relying on nothing but an ignorant jury

759
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 3: of hicks, despite the fact that his witnesses included some

760
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:53,760
Speaker 3: of the best known physicians and scientists in the world.

761
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 3: Even as the Texas jury was deliberating, Merk's lead attorney,

762
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 3: Jerry Lowry, said if he Lanier had any evidence causes arrhythmia,

763
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 3: this case would have been over three weeks ago. A

764
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 3: few months after the trial verdict, CNBC broadcast a debate

765
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 3: between Lanier and Richard Epstein, the James Parker Hall Distinguished

766
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 3: Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago and

767
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 3: a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute. The professor had

768
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 3: written an op ed piece for The Wall Street Journal

769
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 3: and said that physicians lamented the fact that they could

770
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 3: no longer use the drug. Many leading newspapers, including The

771
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 3: Washington Post, also mocked the Ernst trial. In an editorial

772
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:29,400
Speaker 3: entitled the viox Hex, the Post wrote that the Texas

773
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 3: jury in that case awarded two hundred and fifty three

774
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 3: point four million to the widow of a man who

775
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 3: died of a heart attack triggered by arrhythmia, which is

776
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 3: not a conditioned Viyax has been proven to cause. The

777
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:41,320
Speaker 3: Post said, the jury was confused about the medical evidence.

778
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:44,320
Speaker 3: And this is number one, that fucking dude debating Laneer

779
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 3: on stage as a Hoover Institute guides right wing thing tape.

780
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 3: But number two, you've got all these like big publications

781
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 3: going like, oh, these it's a Texas jury. So clearly

782
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:56,839
Speaker 3: they're hicks. They don't understand our big cities science. They

783
00:38:56,960 --> 00:39:00,840
Speaker 3: just got bamboozled by this smooth talking law who just

784
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:01,720
Speaker 3: hated Merk.

785
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 2: It's so fucked up.

786
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,839
Speaker 4: You're totally right. It was like this era where it

787
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,760
Speaker 4: was like people like there has to be personal accountability

788
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 4: for this, Like they should have known that there was

789
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 4: a small risk with medications, and they, I mean, they're

790
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 4: missing the point, which was that the risk was obfuscated

791
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 4: in the beginning, I think, I mean, it sounds like,

792
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 4: to be honest with you, it it's still at some

793
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:30,719
Speaker 4: point they look back at these medications and they said,

794
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 4: you know what, there might be a role for them,

795
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 4: and they're actually, you know, very well, could be a

796
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 4: good use for some of these uses and stuff, right,

797
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 4: I mean, even viox could have had specific uses for

798
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:48,359
Speaker 4: very well chosen patients. And they'll never get to that.

799
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:50,359
Speaker 4: Those patients will never get to that. They'll never get

800
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,239
Speaker 4: to have that benefit of a medicine that could actually work.

801
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 4: Because again, instead of all the money going into research

802
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,919
Speaker 4: development figuring out exactly who benefits and who gets harmed

803
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 4: from it and who should have it and who shouldn't,

804
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:05,760
Speaker 4: they spent all their money and energy in finding ways

805
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 4: to sell it and for as long as possible, and

806
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 4: they painted themselves into a corner at the end, and

807
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:14,319
Speaker 4: they couldn't at that point and then say, okay, well,

808
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 4: actually the only these small set of people should use

809
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 4: the medication because the risk is then worth it in

810
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 4: these the small subset. But they couldn't do that. They

811
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:27,319
Speaker 4: had to withdraw completely. So it's just so stupid on

812
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 4: so many levels. It's so it's such a waste, and

813
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 4: it's a waste of all the time and effort that

814
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 4: went into making the medication. Again too, because again the

815
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 4: concept behind the medication, looking at COX two inhibitors, looking

816
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 4: at ways to selectively attack those pain the pain pathways,

817
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:48,080
Speaker 4: shut down the pain pathways before they cascade into inflammation

818
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 4: and pain. It's all smart, it's good. And now now

819
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 4: it's my knowledge, I don't know if people are even

820
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 4: thinking about this anymore. And like we still have problems

821
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 4: with ensades end says still cause problems. Lots of health

822
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 4: problems still come from advil leve I profen. They still

823
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:04,399
Speaker 4: cause me headaches because I have to go and take

824
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:06,760
Speaker 4: care of people believing because of them that cause hard issues,

825
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:10,800
Speaker 4: kidney problems, liver problems. Like people should be we should

826
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 4: be researching new paid medications and worrying about how to

827
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 4: do that right as opposed to how to make as

828
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 4: much money off of as possible. But that's not where

829
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:21,399
Speaker 4: we are, it's not who we are. So I don't

830
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 4: know why I'm saying this.

831
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:25,640
Speaker 3: I'm just no, I mean, it's it's all very frustrating, right,

832
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:28,800
Speaker 3: Like the way that this worked is just comprehensively bad

833
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 3: for everybody but a handful of people at the top

834
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:36,319
Speaker 3: of mark. It's bad for the research scientists at MERK

835
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 3: who were not shady motherfuckers who will always exist under

836
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 3: a cloud of suspicion because they worked during the vox era.

837
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 3: It's bad for the people who might have benefited from

838
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 3: a VIAX that was rolled out in a more reasonable

839
00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 3: way to a smaller subset of people. It's bad for

840
00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 3: all of the tens of thousands of people who lost

841
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 3: loved ones and the people who had life altering injuries

842
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 3: as a result of it. It's just terrible for everybody.

843
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 3: But you know, doctor Hoode, not terrible for anybody. What's

844
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:05,840
Speaker 3: that products and services that support this podcast, all of

845
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,720
Speaker 3: which have been FDA approved, And if we've learned anything

846
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 3: this episode, that always means good, good, and we're back.

847
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 3: So we're drawing to a close in this episode.

848
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:27,760
Speaker 4: I have a question. Did they actually lose money overall

849
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:29,920
Speaker 4: from this? How much? Do we know? How much?

850
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:30,399
Speaker 6: No?

851
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 3: No, no, no. They pay in total a little less

852
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 3: than a billion dollars in penalties and additional civil settlements

853
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:37,839
Speaker 3: for their victim. They are making two and a half

854
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 3: billion dollars a year during the period of time where

855
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 3: they're selling this and it's been it's out for five years,

856
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 3: something like five years. Yeah yeah, okay, yeah, so that's cool.

857
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 4: Now.

858
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 3: One of my favorite side parts in this story is

859
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 3: that the Washington Posts takes like a huge strong stance

860
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 3: to defend an unethical mega corporation and got something wrong,

861
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 3: which is not a thing that iver happens again.

862
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:02,720
Speaker 2: Anyway.

863
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 3: About a year after the Post's article talking about how

864
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:10,359
Speaker 3: unfair it is to Suemer, Harvard's School of Public Health

865
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 3: issues a public health bulletin warning that vyax use was

866
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 3: associated with severe heart rhythm disorders and an increased risk

867
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:19,760
Speaker 3: of kidney failure. More research comes out in the following

868
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:22,439
Speaker 3: years that further vindicates everyone who tried to Warren Mrk

869
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:25,239
Speaker 3: and the world about biox the medication that had been

870
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 3: prescribed to some twenty million people in eighty countries by

871
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 3: the time it was polled. We will never have a

872
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:32,360
Speaker 3: comprehensive list of the number of people killed and injured

873
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 3: as a result of viox, but what we do know

874
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 3: is harrowing. Doctor David Graham, the Associate Director for Science

875
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 3: and Medicine and the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, testified

876
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 3: before the Senate Finance Committee that Yax had been associated

877
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 3: with at least one hundred thousand heart attacks and more

878
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 3: than fifty five thousand premature deaths, that is, in the

879
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:53,879
Speaker 3: United States. He compared the cost to two to four

880
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:57,280
Speaker 3: jumbo jetliners crashing every week for five years.

881
00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:03,280
Speaker 4: Well it shit, yeah, striking imagery.

882
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a lot of dead people.

883
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:06,440
Speaker 4: God.

884
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 3: Now, the lawsuits that resulted from this are far too

885
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 3: numerous to chronicles, save to note that Merk initially promised

886
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 3: to fight each of the thirty thousand lawsuits against them independently.

887
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 2: Well, fight everyone, yes, man.

888
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:23,800
Speaker 3: Then they agreed in two thousand and eight to provide

889
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 3: what could have been almost five billion as part of

890
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 3: the settlement, but I don't know how much of that

891
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 3: they actually paid out. And then they pled guilty to

892
00:44:32,080 --> 00:44:35,640
Speaker 3: a misdemeanor for a legal promotional activity that was about

893
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:39,360
Speaker 3: another nine hundred and fifty million in penalties and civil payments.

894
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 3: So you know, they wound up paying a good amount

895
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:43,919
Speaker 3: of money. That's like they lost a good like two

896
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 3: years or so of the profits that they made.

897
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 4: Did Dorothy Hamil do anytime? No?

898
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:51,319
Speaker 3: No, Dorothy Hamill does not go to prison for him.

899
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 3: Many many crimes. They do plead guilty to a misdemeanor

900
00:44:56,160 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 3: for introducing a misbranded drug to interstate commerce, So that's nice.

901
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:02,319
Speaker 3: But no one at Merk is locked up for what

902
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 3: they did. Nor do any of the scientists who degree

903
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 3: to help cover up studies or push this info suffer

904
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 3: lasting career harms, with the notable exception of our friend

905
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 3: Scott Ruben. Paul White, the editor at the Journal of

906
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:17,760
Speaker 3: Anesthesia and Analgesia, claims that Ruben's study showing the benefits

907
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:20,359
Speaker 3: of COX two inhibitors helped sell billions of dollars worth

908
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 3: of both celebres and vox. In two thousand and nine,

909
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:25,720
Speaker 3: he was revealed to have completely falsified at least twenty

910
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 3: one of his published papers, all of which claimed to

911
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:31,040
Speaker 3: show how else super aspirins could benefit post operative healing.

912
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:33,799
Speaker 3: Pfiser had funded Ruben's work from two thousand and two

913
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 3: to two thousand and seven, the years when they were

914
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 3: also making bank on a little medication called Celebrex. His employer,

915
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:42,800
Speaker 3: Bay State Medical Center, claimed a Scientific American that Ruben

916
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 3: had been paid directly by Pfeiser for his work, and

917
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:48,359
Speaker 3: that he had been decided how much of that money

918
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 3: would fund research and how much would go into his pocket,

919
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 3: which sounds fine, that's not sketchy, there's nothing. How could

920
00:45:57,800 --> 00:45:58,760
Speaker 3: that lead to anything?

921
00:45:58,880 --> 00:45:59,880
Speaker 2: Bad man?

922
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 4: You know, it's giving antithesiologists a bad name.

923
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 2: It is, it is, and.

924
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 4: These are guys who deal with a lot of fentanyl.

925
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:12,360
Speaker 4: So that is wild. That is well. I am actually

926
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:17,280
Speaker 4: I would love to read his articles that are totally fabricating.

927
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,960
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's some good breakdowns on them from scientists

928
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 3: who are more qualified than me to talk about it.

929
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:24,760
Speaker 4: I do recommend.

930
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 3: It's a fascinating story. One of my favorite quotes from

931
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,600
Speaker 3: this is that his employer, Base Date, like when people

932
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 3: would note that, like, well, that's not how pharmaceutical You're

933
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 3: not just supposed to give a single guy cash, Like

934
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 3: that's not how pharmaceutical research is supposed to be done.

935
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:43,240
Speaker 3: A spokesman for Base State Medical Center told Scientific American,

936
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 3: I don't know how many dollars went to Ruben or

937
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 3: his group.

938
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:50,280
Speaker 2: Wow, no idea, Holy hell.

939
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 3: A Pfiser spokesperson insisted the grants we're properly dispersed to

940
00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 3: Base State in accordance with Pfiser policy, but that they

941
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,279
Speaker 3: weren't familiar with the record's retention policies of base state,

942
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 3: so you know, who knows, who knows how much money

943
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 3: between ten and one hundred thousand dollars at least, But

944
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:12,839
Speaker 3: he was actually asked to pay three hundred and sixty

945
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in restitution when he got sentenced in twenty

946
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 3: ten after pleading guilty of massive fraud. Prosecutors argued that

947
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 3: he'd been paid huge money in grants and never performed

948
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 3: the studies he'd been paid to conduct. He just pocketed

949
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 3: the cash and published lies about celebres. Thankfully, justice was done.

950
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 3: He was given six months in prison and asked to

951
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 3: pay three hundred and sixty thousand in restitution to the

952
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:39,440
Speaker 3: pharmaceutical companies who'd sponsored his work, the real victims and

953
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 3: all this holy shit.

954
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, actually, I mean he did some time. That's something.

955
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:47,240
Speaker 4: I mean, I do know doctors that's gone to actual

956
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:49,839
Speaker 4: prison for like medicare fraud and that sort of thing,

957
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:54,680
Speaker 4: like done actual time. It's not common, but you know,

958
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,360
Speaker 4: it can certainly happen. I mean, the things I'm seeing

959
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 4: are there, it's always fraud related, you know. And actually

960
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 4: six months isn't as long as I've seen other people

961
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 4: go for what I kind of consider to be lesser crimes,

962
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 4: but they weren't crimes committed directly against the American government

963
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 4: and medicare frauds, So that's probably why he only got

964
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:15,800
Speaker 4: six months.

965
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 2: Yep.

966
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:22,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the story of biocs. Doctor Hoode. How

967
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:22,800
Speaker 3: are you feeling?

968
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:23,359
Speaker 2: How are you good?

969
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:27,080
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I again, it comes down to

970
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:30,799
Speaker 4: like I'm always a little torn when I do episodes

971
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:33,920
Speaker 4: or talk about how terrible pharmaceutical companies are, because they

972
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:36,640
Speaker 4: are terrible and I have so many problems with them,

973
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 4: but there's always a part of me that's like they

974
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 4: are super important at the same time, and we do

975
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:47,920
Speaker 4: need them more than ever to be really focused on

976
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:55,200
Speaker 4: important world health issues and infectious diseases. And the problem

977
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 4: is the things I really care about, the things I

978
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:00,800
Speaker 4: think are really important, are not necessarily things that they're

979
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 4: going to make money off of, and they just don't

980
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 4: really care. So I'm very torn. I have a lot

981
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 4: of mixed emotions about pharmaceutical companies in general, and it

982
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:14,319
Speaker 4: bothers me when people assume that I am like pro

983
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 4: pharmacutical company because I hate them more than anybody really,

984
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:20,439
Speaker 4: I mean, I really do. But at the same time,

985
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 4: we do need their help unless we get more scientists

986
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 4: like doctor Peter Hotez, who's you know, a friend of

987
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 4: the show has come on who has made his own

988
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 4: pharmacutic or like vaccines at cost, these great like vaccines,

989
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:40,480
Speaker 4: and people still accuse him of being a pharmacial even

990
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 4: though he works completely outside of the farmer world. So

991
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:48,400
Speaker 4: I'm very torn about pharmacual companies in general, and I

992
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 4: think it is very very very important that we continue

993
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 4: to like pick at them, analyze them, be super critical

994
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 4: of them, but also be fair about what they can

995
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 4: can do, what they should do, and what we should

996
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 4: expect from them. I think we have to be able

997
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:07,759
Speaker 4: to look at them critically and look at them in

998
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:10,760
Speaker 4: a sort of we have to look at them critically,

999
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:13,680
Speaker 4: but we also have to be able to be fair

1000
00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 4: and reasonable about what we expect from a massive corporation.

1001
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 4: These are examples, like this case here of things that

1002
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 4: should never have been allowed to have happened and are

1003
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 4: going to continue to happen because we aren't going to

1004
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 4: have the oversight of these companies and it's going to

1005
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:34,320
Speaker 4: become easier and easier for things like this to happen,

1006
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 4: which is my fear unless doctors and scientists around the

1007
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:43,200
Speaker 4: world have the time and energy to really pick apart

1008
00:50:43,239 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 4: at every detail and every study that comes from them.

1009
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 4: But I think even academic medicine is going to be

1010
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 4: under the gun in the coming years too. I don't

1011
00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:57,040
Speaker 4: feel great for my friends who have, like who have

1012
00:50:57,160 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 4: academic jobs in medicine. I think they're all going to

1013
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:01,840
Speaker 4: be at who's going to get paid, who's going to

1014
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:03,360
Speaker 4: be able to get to stay, who's going to be

1015
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:05,920
Speaker 4: able to get their research done. It's all going to

1016
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 4: be at the whim of people who know very little

1017
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 4: about science, who care very little about science. So very

1018
00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 4: depressed is the answer to your question.

1019
00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:17,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's yeah. There's not much more to

1020
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 3: say on the matter than that, right, Like this is

1021
00:51:21,160 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 3: I guess part of what's so frustrated to me is

1022
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 3: that the sweep of like the anti intellectual crusade that

1023
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:30,360
Speaker 3: is going to cost so many people their lives, is

1024
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:35,279
Speaker 3: of such catastrophic danger to every positive gain that we've

1025
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 3: made as a society in the last one hundred and

1026
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:43,800
Speaker 3: fifty years. Is fueled in part by the irresponsibility, greed,

1027
00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:47,360
Speaker 3: and wastefulness of people who knew better who are not ideologues,

1028
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:53,280
Speaker 3: who are not misinformed, who are just willing to well,

1029
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 3: the system can handle, you know, me fucking around in

1030
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:58,280
Speaker 3: this way, or like why shouldn't I get paid?

1031
00:51:58,360 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 4: Right?

1032
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,319
Speaker 3: Like, someone will catch it, it won't be that bad. Like,

1033
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 3: And those little acts of malfeasance provide a lot of

1034
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:10,080
Speaker 3: the fuel, like the distrust, the hatred for elites and whatnot.

1035
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 3: You know, when I say elites, I mean like in

1036
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:15,440
Speaker 3: you know, the medical sense, right, You've got doctors and

1037
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:17,800
Speaker 3: people at the FDA who are like in the tank

1038
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 3: for these sketchy drugs that get people killed. And that

1039
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:23,800
Speaker 3: means that when we have a fucking pandemic, less people

1040
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:26,960
Speaker 3: trust them. Right, Like vax is not zero percent of

1041
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 3: why so many people were hesitant to trust medical science

1042
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 3: during COVID, right, and neither is the opiate epidemic. Right,

1043
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 3: And that that doesn't mean that the people that RFK

1044
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 3: has a point. It means that, like, if you let

1045
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 3: people get away with shit like this, and we always do, uh,

1046
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 3: it'll just keep getting worse. Somebody who is who is

1047
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:51,800
Speaker 3: absolutely has no limits whatsoever, will start taking advantage of

1048
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:52,480
Speaker 3: the situation.

1049
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:54,319
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's exactly right.

1050
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:55,719
Speaker 2: Yea, that's exactly right.

1051
00:52:56,840 --> 00:52:59,919
Speaker 4: So, yeah, it's going to be a wild four years.

1052
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 4: There be so much diarrhea.

1053
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:03,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of diarrhea.

1054
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:06,800
Speaker 3: Look, folks, every year I go to Vegas, I find

1055
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:10,600
Speaker 3: whichever buffet has the rancidest muscles, and I eat fourteen

1056
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 3: to fifteen plates, and that provides me with the internal

1057
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:18,920
Speaker 3: strength and resilience I need to handle any kind of

1058
00:53:19,040 --> 00:53:21,719
Speaker 3: change to our health and safety food standards. I'm going

1059
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:24,640
Speaker 3: to be fine in this this sick new world, Kava.

1060
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:27,080
Speaker 3: I'm going to be eating rancid muscles like a king.

1061
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 4: So many, so many food born illnesses, so much. It's

1062
00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:35,200
Speaker 4: gonna be the.

1063
00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:37,800
Speaker 3: It's gonna be the Golden Age of diarrhea, the brown Age.

1064
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, that's what. That's what I'm gonna call this, the.

1065
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:44,120
Speaker 3: The Guilden Age and the uh the brown Age. Well,

1066
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:45,919
Speaker 3: actually we could call it the guilt and age, which

1067
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:49,439
Speaker 3: is an old timey term for like shit encrusted on

1068
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:52,799
Speaker 3: your your ass. Perfect well, explain it, but it works. Yeah,

1069
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:54,319
Speaker 3: you have to explain it. You have to explain it.

1070
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 3: But you know, why does that make it bad?

1071
00:53:57,200 --> 00:53:57,640
Speaker 2: Anyway?

1072
00:53:57,719 --> 00:53:57,799
Speaker 1: No?

1073
00:53:58,280 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right?

1074
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:03,759
Speaker 4: For having meat, Yeah, it's always good it's nice seeing you,

1075
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:07,719
Speaker 4: nice in your face. For your listeners who may have

1076
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 4: an interest in learning more about medical topics, you can

1077
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:13,480
Speaker 4: listen to my podcast The House of Pod anywhere you

1078
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:17,279
Speaker 4: get your podcasts, and uh follow me applu skuy at

1079
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:21,400
Speaker 4: cave MT and thank.

1080
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:23,800
Speaker 3: You yeah, thanks for coming on the sheer.

1081
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Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

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Speaker 1: Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

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Speaker 1: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

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Speaker 1: and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash

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Speaker 1: at Behind the Bastards