Joe Rogan Experience #1756 - John Abramson

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All right, we're, we're on. Hello, John.

Joe.

Thanks for doing this, man.

Blessed to meet you.

So, uh, this is obviously a subject, um, that, uh, in this current era is, uh, very intriguing and very important for people, um, Big Pharma. And this is, uh, the subject of your book. How, uh, Big Pharma... What, what is the, uh, the, the, the heading? How Big Pharma Broke America? Is that what it is?

Uh, uh, it's, uh, I actually have a copy

Broke, broke our healthcare system. a copy of it before. Oh, good, because it's not available. I tried to get it and they, uh, they sent me copies of the audiobook, but it's in these weird wave files and when the, you have to turn your screen off or it shuts off, the sound. All right.

There you go.

Sickening. How Big Pharma Broke American Healthcare and How We Can Repair It. Um, so how did they break American healthcare? What happened? How did it, how did we get so deep in? And how is it that we're one of only two countries on earth that allows pharmaceutical companies to advertise?

Well, let, let's start with that question first.

Yeah, let's do that.

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

Hm. So, uh, uh, so is, ha- has there ever been a conversation, like, whether it's, uh, publicly or privately that you know of where they've tried to stop this? Is this one of those things that once it gets into play, once there is a, a, a law that allows pharmaceutical drug companies to sponsor or, or, or to, uh, advertise, are we doomed then? Because then the amount of money that's involved in advertising and when you see those, "Brought to you by Pfizer," those CNN commercials, and when you see the, um, whether it's for allergy medications or antidepressants, the sheer volume of money that's involved, it seems like extracting that from our system would be very difficult to manage. Because they're gonna fight tooth and claw to keep that ad.

Absolutely. So, uh, as best I understand it, from, from the lawyers who do understand it, in, in our Constitution, the advertising of, uh, prescription drugs is, falls under the free speech, uh, mandate of our Constitution. And some things, uh, you can control the advertising of. Cigarettes and alcohol. There's no, uh, beneficial use of those. Uh, they're not a, um, they can be recreational, but there's no, uh, absolute benefit to them. But with drugs, there is a, an absolute benefit. And they, because of that, they qualify as protected under the, uh, First Amendment. However, that said, uh, the floodgates were opened, and it's clear that the drug companies are gonna spend as much advertising, however many billions of dollars, uh, they want, uh, to make as much money as they can. Uh, but there's nothing that says the drug ads need to be allowed, uh, that we need to allow them to be misleading. So, you never see in a drug ad that you have to treat, uh, 323 people with Trulicity for a year to prevent one cardiovascular event. They don't tell you that. They tell you, "Trulicity for diabetes prevents cardiovascular events in diabetics." But if they said, "You have to treat 323 people to get one better and the other three- 322 aren't gonna have a cardiovascular benefit," then you'd be delivering information that people can use. And if you said that you can't play, uh, violins or have family picnics while you're, uh, reciting all the side effects, then people would listen to the side effects.