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Harvard Medical School
Aaron Kesselheim is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of its Program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law.
PROFILE
Aaron Kesselheim
Guest
FROM Aaron Kesselheim
To the Point
An old drug gets a ridiculously high price….again Are incentives for so-called "orphan drugs" being misused to jack up the price of one medication by 4000 percent? Photo by Chris Potter A rare form of muscular dystrophy has long been treated in the US by a steroid imported from overseas at a price of $1200 a year. Now the FDA has approved its manufacture and distribution in this country by the drug company Marathon. The new price is $89,000 a year — reduced to $54,000 after rebates and discounts. We get perspective from Carolyn Johnson, who covers the business of medicine for the Washington Post , and Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard, where he's also Director of the program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Doctors, Drug Companies and Transparency In an effort to get doctors to prescribe their drugs to patients, drug makers spend billions of dollars a year on meals, speaking and consulting fees, and other perks for physicians. Today, a new government database goes online that will list the money pharmaceutical companies spend on doctors.
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To the Point
Who's to blame for the opioid crisis? Some of the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are now going after Big Pharma. It’s all about the deadly epidemic of opioid use. Are the drug companies to blame? What about the users? Later, on today’s Talking Point: making sense of Britain’s upset election.
To the Point
The Trump agenda: where's the beef? President Trump says big things are happening. After celebrating a House bill on health care, he doesn’t yet have Senate agreement. With James Comey’s public testimony scheduled tomorrow, the President today tweeted his selection of a new FBI Director. Is the Chief Executive all style and no substance? Later, terror attacks in Iran and conflicting claims about who’s behind them.
To the Point
Trump's new look at civil rights and global warming President Trump is reportedly ready to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. We look at the possible consequences. On the second half of the program, we hear about cuts in Obama-Era civil rights programs called for by the Trump Administration's first budget plan.
To the Point
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.