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Your Call

DRUG$ links exorbitant medication prices with corporate greed

On this edition of Your Call, we discuss the new documentary DRUG$.

In the film, Senator Bernie Sanders says Washington ought to stand up to the greed of pharmaceutical companies, but those companies own Washington. Through interviews with patients, lawmakers, doctors, and pharmaceutical company employees, DRUG$ examines a pricing system that allows medication costs to soar as high as $1,000 a pill. What can be done to ensure patients no longer have to choose between getting their medication and putting food on the table?

Guests:

David Mitchell, president and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs

Jamie Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International

Dr. Jerry Avorn, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women's Hospital

Web Resources:

The Guardian: Big Pharma’s worst nightmare

LA Times: Review: Documentary 'Drug$' takes aim at Big Pharma

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OIQAn5jAbM

Rose Aguilar has been the host of Your Call since 2006. She became a regular media roundtable guest in 2001. In 2019, the San Francisco Press Club named Your Call the best public affairs program. In 2017, The Nation named it the most valuable local radio show.