Brigham and Women's Hospital
Senior physician in the Hematology Division at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Director of its Center for Medical Innovation; visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Pharmaphobia: How the Conflict of Interest Myth Undermines American Medical Innovation; Professor of Medicine Emeritus at Harvard Medical School
Can politics cure the high cost of drugs? EpiPens are the poster child for vast increases in the price of familiar medications. Many people carry them for emergency treatment of allergic reactions that can be life threatening. So, when the Mylan Company raised the price of two EpiPens from $100 $614 it made big news. Turns out, it's the tip of the iceberg. Drug prices are on the rise and desperately ill people are often those hit by bills they never expected. Other countries have established price controls for life-or-death medications, but America's system is so complex it defies understanding. Drug and insurance companies, hospitals and doctors engage in secret negotiations, while various middlemen get cuts of the action. And, who's paying for those expensive ads on TV? Patients. Are the presidential campaigns offering any realistic solutions?
The Patient's Right to Know - About Their Doctor’s Other Relationships The so-called Sunshine Act, which is part of Obamacare, mandates financial disclosure by drug companies and the makers of medical devices. How much have they paid to doctors, dentists, chiropractors, podiatrists, and optometrists; not just for medical research, but for promotional speaking, consulting and dinners out? A new, federal website is now online, and the non-profit investigative journalism organization ProPublica maintains its own records on a website called Dollars for Docs .
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.
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.
Replacing Obamacare: Now you see it… now you don’t As the Senate deliberates replacing Obmacare, health coverage for millions of people is at stake. There've been no public hearings, and a draft measure won't be made public. Is the House version so unpopular that that Senate is hiding a version that looks much the same?
Is the threat from Russia missing from the Russia meddling probe? There's much being made about the Trump administration's possible ties with Russia. But the bottom line is Russia's effort to influence American democracy. Do the President and his aides care enough to take action before voters go back to the polls?