September 25, 2024 • 33 mins
In this episode, Tudor speaks with Rob Burgess, the executive director of Americans for Pharma Reform, about the pressing issues surrounding Big Pharma and the need for reform. They discuss the exorbitant costs of pharmaceuticals in the U.S. compared to other countries, the impact of direct-to-consumer advertising, and the monopolistic practices within the pharmaceutical industry. Rob emphasizes the importance of government accountability, the role of the FDA, and the need for a more informed public regarding medication use, particularly antidepressants. The conversation highlights the intersection of food, health, and pharmaceuticals, and the long-term effects of medications on individuals. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network. For more visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Today, I have a
Rob Burgess with me. He is the executive director of
Americans for Pharma Reform. You guys all know that I
talk a lot about big Pharma on here and what
exactly is happening with big Pharma, And then I found
Rob's information and what he's doing, and I started to
kind of like go down that rabbit hole of what
(00:21):
he's exposed when it comes to big pharma, and I
was like, Wow, this is like way bigger than I thought.
So I'm excited because he is right now on a
nationwide bus tour called Bust Big Pharma Bus Tour so
that people can actually learn about this. But we thought,
you know what, the best thing for us is to
have you on the podcast, Rob and talk about it
(00:42):
right here, and you can tell us everywhere your.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Tour is going to go.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
But let's dig into big pharma. Thanks for joining me,
Thanks for having me to absolutely so your mission is
to raise awareness of pharma reform. We haven't really talked
about pharma reform in the past in like all of
the different ways that big Pharma is connected to education,
connected to the consumer in a weird way in the
(01:06):
United States, that it doesn't happen in any other country,
and how that's affecting pharmaceutical sales, but also the cost
to Americans versus other countries.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
There's just so much.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
So if you can just kind of dive right in,
what do you think is the most important part of
pharma reform?
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Sure, thanks for having me, and you're right. Pharma actually
has its reaches throughout so many different aspects of our
lives right now. And as we've been experiencing a really
terrible economy over the last three and a half years,
I started doing more and more research about what were
some maybe unhighlighted aspects that we're contributing to that factors.
(01:43):
And that's when I started realizing things in the pharmaceutical
space that a lot of Americans might not realize. For example,
we're paying five to seven times more for the same
prescriptions than the rest of the developed world. We are
subsidizing prescriptions worldwide as American consumers. What we're supposed to
be doing in this country right Then you have the
CEOs and the c suites at these pharmaceutical companies making
(02:06):
seven and eight figure salaries and bonuses on the backs
of the American consumer while they're having to make decisions,
do they cut their prescriptions in half, do they even
pick up their prescription right or do they pay the
light bill this month? And those were really things that
bothered me, and we decided it was time for us
to go on a nationwide bus tour. We started in Arizona.
(02:27):
We've been going for about forty days. We're now here
in Michigan. In fact, we were just at the University
of Michigan football game on Saturday. And we find ourselves
in Macinaw today and we're going to be going to
go see President Trump later this week.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
What a great place to stop.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Mcinaw's beautiful and you're here at a great time of year.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The leaves are just changing.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I'm jealous that you're up there, But I want to
get into you said we're paying more than the rest
of the world. Why, I mean to me, that's totally
mind blowing. Is it because we have private insurance that
they just assume we'll pay.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Are they just.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Using us to subsidy subsidize the rest of the world.
What exactly is happening there?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Part of it is an insurance game where yes, there's
now a third party validator that they can charge a
little bit more because they're not charging the consumer directly.
But more importantly than that, you have to look at
how their revenue is actually being spent. Big pharmasts spent
more in the last two years on direct to consumer
advertising on television than they did on research of pharmaceutical drugs.
(03:30):
They spent more to deliver a message to you as
a consumer about a medication that you might not have
the medical training to understand to necessarily know if it
was the right prescription for you, and they spent that
money and then wrote it off as a tax right off.
There was a big pharmaceutical company last year that received
more in tax refunds than they paid in taxes last year.
(03:52):
That's simply unconscious able here in this country. We need
to make sure that we're prioritizing the American consumer. We
need to stop making sure that Americans are making sure
that the same prescription we're paying seventy dollars for is
not seven dollars in France. We need to make sure
that there is an approach that American consumers are priced
first in this market, not last.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, these are American companies for the most part, and
they're doing, and that's how they're getting the tax right
I don't understand how can they get a tax right
off for advertising to consumers?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
How does that even work?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Well? And again they're looking at the totality of everything
they spent money on. But they're saying that's a legitimate
business expense that you know, it's something that they need
to go ahead and make sure that they remain profitable
and that they have profit share and market share and
that their message is getting distributed and so that they
write advertising off. But that's not something that you or
I get to do, right. I don't get to write
(04:45):
off my vehicle because I drive to work every day.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Right, that is out well. Also, other countries don't allow
this advertising. So to me, this is like a double whamming.
Not only do they get to go direct to the consumer,
but then the consumer pays for it, because if they're
getting a tax deduction, I mean that's coming from us.
They're not paying their taxes, so our taxes have to
fill that in.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
How can that possibly be?
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And to your point earlier, I read something that you
had put out and your group is working on that
says that them going direct to the consumer is really
messing up the consumer's relationship with their medical doctor and
their medical doctor's ability to actually give them great medical advice.
Because they see this, they aren't necessarily hearing well. If
(05:30):
you see one commercial, you're not hearing Okay, well this
acts this way, but this other medication might be better
for you. You only hear the benefits, and then you
have that quick laundry list at the end where you
hear that and you're like, my gosh, if I take
this medication, I'm going to die. But the alternative is
that I'm going to have this terrible rash on my
elbows and knees. So I'm going to take the medication
because it has to be the best thing for me.
(05:50):
But their doctor doesn't get to tell them no, probably
not because they've heard this ad exactly right.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
When you have directed consumer advertising in the pharmaceutical space,
those ads are produced in they're cut like movies.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You get to see this great storyline. Yes, this beautiful
woman walking down the street opening up a bakery or
a juice shop, and you know, but she wasn't able
to do it because she had this issue. But this
one medication allowed her to achieve her American dream. Well,
in the real world, that's not what that looks like,
and that's not the way it works. Medical doctors, medical
(06:23):
professionals go to school and they study these medications in depth,
and they need to know how it's affected by one
medication you're taking versus the other. And as consumers, we
don't have that education, we don't have that necessity of
knowing what interacts with one another, and so we just
see the story. We see, you know, that fantasy and
(06:44):
fairy tale that has been painted for us, and we
want to participate in it.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
It was funny when I first started working, when I
was in my twenties, I was working in public relations,
and all of my friends were working as our prescription
drug salespeople, and there was like a massive movement of Suddenly,
this is something I had never heard of before, and
my friends would spend their days.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Going from doctor's office to doctor's office.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Giving free samples, bringing in a lunch, and convincing the
doctor to push a certain medication. Is that something unique
to the United States or is that a normal a
normal situation, because I would think that the doctors would
be getting the information and they would there would be
kind of a different way to do this, But this
would be a weekly meeting where they would expect this
(07:29):
drug salesperson to come in with a lunch. They would
have a lunch every single day in their office from
different drug salespeople, and they would be hawking their newest medication,
which might not actually be new, as you've pointed out,
it might just be a tweak to that medication so
that they can't get a generic right now.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
And I'm not exactly sure how it might work in
different countries, but to some extent, those pharmaceutical reps to
exist worldwide right now, what they are able to do
or how they're able to interact it might be changing.
But that's why we are advocation for the government to
put some guardrails up right. We believe some guardrails towards
reforms important for exactly what you just mentioned is the
(08:08):
fact that as these patents are starting to expire, they're
looking for their most profitable prescriptions, those most profitable drugs,
and they're going to make an insignificant squeak to that formula.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
They're going to do something that does not change the outcome.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
It does not make the medicine better, it does not
change ultimately anything that has happened while it's been protected
by patent. But it's going to renew that patent, it's
going to prevent it from being competed within the free
market by a generic or another outside group. That's something
we don't think is fair that evergreening patent's process. We
think that there needs to be guardrails put up around that, saying, hey,
(08:42):
unless you make a thirty percent change, unless you do
something that actually increases the benefit of your medication, we're
not going to give you that renewal. And we also
think that we need to completely reform that direct to
consumer relationship. You know that these pharmaceutical reps and these
advertising agencies, they need to do a better job of
educating just the doctor, right, just the medical professional. They
(09:03):
don't necessarily need to be bringing lunches in to feed
a staff of sixty when it's only one person actually
writing on the prescription pad. And so we need to
do a better job of making sure that their money
is being spent towards a way that encourages more.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Competition in the market place.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
They're spending more money on research than they are advertising,
and they're not talking directly to consumers or individuals that
can't make an educated, uniform decision for the betterment of
our health.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Well, and that's not something that I've argued, is that
these companies are making a lot of profit, but they
are the leading developers of new medications out there.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
They're the innovators.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
They are putting the money into R and D, and
the United States has always been the leading innovator of
the world. But then I'm reading some of the stuff
that you're putting out, and that's suddenly changing. They're not
so much innovating as they are just focused on profit.
And so those that money instead of going to R
and D is going going into advertising that then they're
(10:01):
getting that tax break on which why wouldn't you do that?
You know you're going to be able to continue to
get the profit. If you put it into R and D,
it's gone. If you put it into an add and
you get a tax break, then it's not gone.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
You've been able to.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Recap re rehab some of that money and then you
can use it to put it into other things and people.
So you have a massive staff of these pharmaceutical reps
and they make very good money. I mean, when I
came out of school, and these guys where my buddy
is out there doing that, I'm like barely making it,
and these folks are making a lot of money. And
(10:34):
then you've got, like you said, these CEOs that are
bringing in a massive amount of money, and yet people
can't afford their medications. And so I look at this
and I think, well, gosh, if you're able to continue
to push this into the market and bring in new
consumers because they're going to their doctor and pushing that
we need this back, we need we need this medication,
then where is all of the profit going If it's
(10:56):
not going to lower the drugs, Well.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
It's going through their pockets. Like you said, you can
see that by how they're treating.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
The C suite.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
But you know, for a long time, Americans, and specifically
the American government, has subsidized that research. Right when you
start looking at the negotiations that our government has made
with the pharmaceutical companies for Medicare and Medicaid prescriptions, we
are funding all that R and D, but at the
same time, we are not receiving the benefit of it
(11:24):
from a cost perspective. Right, we should not be the
bottom tier of the rum when it comes to how
these prescriptions are priced throughout the world. In fact, there
was a hearing a few months ago where one of
the CEOs of a pharmaceutical company was showed the price
for the same drug over in Europe versus the United States,
and it was a significant cost difference. I think it's
(11:46):
about five times more here than it was over there
in Europe. And the simple question was are you making
profit off of that same prescription in Europe or are
you only making profit here in the United States. And
he said, no, we're making profit off of the one
in Europe as well, so they can afford to go
ahead and have these prescriptions cheaper here at home. But
(12:06):
the system has allowed them to explode those costs and
it has forced us as a consumer to bear that cost.
And that's something we absolutely need to change. And it
starts by informing people and educating people, just like we
are here at the bus Big Pharma Bus Tour throughout
Michigan and the rest of the country, and by having
programs like your show Tutor where you're bringing on experts
(12:28):
in shedding light right sometimes the best disinfectant. But we
need to inform the American people about what's exactly happening,
and what they can do to encourage their members of
Congress to take actions.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Well, that's what I was going to say next, is
that the next step is to have an investigation or
have Congress hold them accountable.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Is this a monopoly situation?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Because I think too often this is a cycle where
the congressmen or the local elected official they actually are
getting their funding from Big Pharma, and then that whole
cycle starts. Well, they're not going to go investigate Big Pharma.
It's one of their biggest donors. They need to win again,
they have to win every two years, so they just
(13:07):
let it keep happening. What is the answer and how
can is it that it has to come from Congress?
And is that an investigation or is that Hey, we
believe that you're running a monopoly because you won't allow
anybody else to make these drugs.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Well, they definitely have a monopolistic practice, right, you know,
that's very apparent, especially when you start looking at that
evergreen of the patent process. But we think that you know,
this is going to be a multi year, multi election
cycle process, and so the first thing that we're trying
to do is a raise awareness and your listeners your viewers.
They can go to Americans for Farmer Reform dot com
or Bustbigpharma dot com. And if we don't have the
(13:45):
bus in an area where they're going to be and
they can't have the opportunity to sign their name on
this mobile petition showing their support, they can sign a
virtual version of the bus there on the website so
that they still participate. The second thing that we need
to do is we need to encourage members Congress to
sign our petition. The petition's very straightforward. It's saying they're
going to put the American consumer first, and it's saying
(14:07):
that they're going to put guardrails up around advertising, and
it's going to say that they're going to start pushing
back against the patent process right. And so by doing
those three things, we think that's something that we can
win on and it does not necessarily alienate quote unquote
Big Pharma from donating to these politicians. It's something that
Big Farma knows are getting away with. And if we
start pulling it back and we start just.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Do you have many of our congressmen? Do you have
many of our congressmen and women who have agreed.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
We're working on it.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
So the pledge is something that we're playing on rolling
out this week, and we're going to start trying to
put it into their hands right away. But again, this
is something that we don't think is going to be
decided between now and the end of the election, right
this is going to be a multi year process.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
We're in it for the long haul, and it's something that.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
We're going to be continuing to spread this message throughout
the country in on Capitol Hill, and we don't really
care about how long it takes us. We're going to
make sure that our voice is heard in the American
people's issues and concerns are heard by not only are
elected officials, but also by far.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
So we have some data that during the COVID crisis,
seven out of ten of the big farm of companies
were spending more money on sales and marketing than research
and development. Does that mean that they were personally spending
more money and that the government was funding R and
D or is that even with government funding, more money
was going into talking directly to the consumer then figuring
(15:34):
out what the next big product should be to combat
the COVID crisis.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
So my understanding from the way that money broke down
was government was funding the R and D entirely, and
they were taking all the other revenue that they had,
and instead of pointing it towards R and D or
to help develop some type of vaccine or other type
of tool to combat that pandemic, they were focused on
their payroll, in staffing and advertising to their reach. Because again,
(16:01):
if you remember, we were having multiple versions of a
COVID vaccine competing against each other, some that was one dose,
some that were multi dose, and they were all out
there competing with doctors in hospitals saying, hey, we're going
to be the one that you want to prescribe, right,
and so again it's it's that jocking effort so that
you know, are you partnered with a certain doctors group
(16:22):
or a certain hospital group, and you know you know that, Okay,
Pfizer drugs are the ones that could be the priority
to be prescribed over Johnson and Johnson drugs.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So what keeps us safe from the government then stopping
other medications from being used based on the fact that well,
we've we've we just sank all this money into research
and development on these COVID nineteen vaccines, and we want
people to use those.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
But because you.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Know, I look back on this and I remember suddenly
it was like, well, these medications are stopping people who
are sick from getting sick or dying. And it was
like no, no, no, no, no, you can't use those. And
then there was this there were people behind the scenes
that are saying, oh, they don't want you to use
that because those are older medications that don't make that
much money. They've already sunk all the money into R
(17:06):
and D for these new medications. They want to push
the public to the new medications. How much of this
could be the government working behind the scenes to say, hey, yeah,
you can put out these ads. We'll fund the R
and D put out these ads, and then we'll stop
people from actually prescribing these old meds, which in Michigan
you had your license taken away if you prescribed an
(17:29):
old med To your point of the doctor isn't allowed
to make the decisions anymore because you've got other people
coming in and saying no, no, no, we know better.
In this case, it wasn't the consumer. I mean, the
consumer sometimes came into the doctor and the doctor said, hey,
my hands are tired, I can't give it to you.
But it wasn't the consumer who was demanding the new
COVID medication. It was the pharmaceutical companies and the government,
(17:52):
and in certain cases the medical professional was saying, I
think I can solve it with this.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
No no, no. If you touch that, your licenses to provoked.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
So we've seen this across industries, right for a long time,
and it's something that you have talked about for years.
It is the unaccountable, unelected government bureaucrat who thinks that
they know how best to run you and your family's
life better than you, your doctor, your teachers.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
That is completely wrong. So a lot of it starts
at that federal level, with this revolving door between big
pharma and the bureaucracy of the FDA. That's something that
we absolutely need to put a hold on. And really
it's something that you could probably accomplish by saying, if
you start in pharma and come to government, you cannot
then become a lobbyist for pharma again, right, And so
(18:41):
it could be a lobbying band type situation that Congress
puts into effect. On government bureaucrats. But more importantly, I
think the big issue here is the FDA itself. A
lot of people don't realize how much control they actually have,
not only over the approval process of medications and pharmaceutical drugs,
but also so generics, what gets to hit the market, win,
(19:03):
how quickly can it get rolled out? Where can it
get rolled out? They have so much leanway leeway of
making these decisions on their own. But the seven heads
of the independent arms of the FDA are not Senate confirmable.
They are political appointees, which means your direct representation does
not have the ability to confirm up and down on
(19:24):
a yay or nay vote for the person that's in
charge of the arm of the FDA that does pharmaceutical drugs,
for the arm of the FDA that proves tobacco policy,
the arm of the FDA that oversees the food quality systems.
That is all appointed at the politician level, from the
White House down. And so we need to change that
(19:45):
effect too once again. By having our direct representative representatives
have a voice, we now get to hold somebody accountable,
and if something happens at a medication level, we can
then go to our members of congressation, Hey, you voted
for him. You told us that these the right people
to make these decisions for us, and look what has happened,
and that's something we ultimately need a championship.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Interesting, and I think that this is something that the
American people are suddenly just kind of becoming aware of
because we inherently trusted the FDA before, we trusted all
of these three letter agencies who were out there. Oh,
they have their best interest in at heart, of course,
We're just going to blindly trust them. And then I
think after the pandemic and everything that happened there, people
(20:27):
started to go, you know, I don't know, I wish
that we had a little bit more control over our
own decisions. I wanted to step into antidepressants. I know
you've worked on profit and professional interests misleading us about antidepressants.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Go into a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Well, again, I think that this is a situation where
for so long a certain drug, antidepressants in this case,
have been not only advertised but then hawked so aggressively
on a specific part of the medical community that there's
all there's almost a feel like they are required to
(21:05):
have this prescription. We have to give this out. This
is just part of the approach to solving the problem.
And then rather than by actually having that conversation patient
by patient.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Right, it might not be the best fit for me.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I might need to do group therapy, right, I might
need to take long walks outside in the sun.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
There might be something completely different that I need. But
because the pharmaceutical companies in the industry have spent so
much time advertising this as the cure, right, this is
the way to stop. This is the way to change things.
We have put all of a sudden, all the other
approaches that we have had for generations to the side,
and we said we can rely on chemicals. Now we
(21:45):
can rely on this approach. And that's not necessarily the
best thing that we can be doing for society, whether
it's for adults like us or our children. Right, we
really need to be making better decisions at the individual
level rather than relying on what a pharmaceutical company or
pharmaceuical rep I was telling us that is industry specific
or is industry practice.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, there's certainly this new movement out there that to
talk about food being medicine. Really how you eat is
important and how what you eat affects how you behave,
how you feel, your depression level, your anxiety level, certainly
your weight. We know that there's been a lot of
push for ozepic in kids, and that's been kind of shocking.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I think for a lot of parents, it's like, wait
a minute.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Now you're going to take my kid and you're going
to put them on a lifelong medication that had historically
been for someone who had a disease like diabetes, and
now you're saying that my child has a disease as well.
And that uptick in Well, this goes to big pharma
and big food because I think that a lot of
the things that are happening in our food industry are
then pushing people into the pharma industry.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Oh okay, well this is you. This is your quick
fix for that.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
We've also seen that I think with the antidepressants, is
like we need a quick fix. This kid is and
I would say this kind of stimulant drugs too. It's
like this kid bops and weaves too much in class
and he's always not paying attention, and this one is
really struggling with anxiety and too nervous about tests and
I've seen it in my own life where the doctor
(23:11):
was like, you know what the best thing is to
immediately put them on a medication.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
I'm like, no, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (23:17):
And I don't think parents historically have pushed back against this,
but now suddenly parents are saying, wait a minute, you
tell me what the side effects are, because that long
list that they read at the end of the commercial
has some pretty terrifying side effects. Is what my child
is dealing with right now, worse than what could happen
if they go on this drug. And some of those
(23:38):
drugs have permanent side effects.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Permanent, but also on how many of those drugs were
originally developed for another solution. Right, you just mentioned those epics, right,
that was a diabet.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
That's interesting, right, that was never.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Supposed to deal with weight loss. It just happened to
be one of the side effects that was mentioned at
the end. Then they realized, oh, it's much more effective
as a weight loss drug than it ever was as
a diabetes drug. We're gonna go ahead and remarket this right,
We're going to charge more for it now because again
they realized the side effect something that they didn't want
(24:12):
to happen. Originally was a better exponent, a better cure
than what they initially had solved for. So now they're
remarketing drugs that had completely different R and D applications.
But you're right, some of these side effects are deeply permanent,
and it's something that we need as consumers, and the
American people need to be saying, how much time are
(24:32):
you really spending on the R and D. The idea
should be the more you spend on R and D,
this more you study this, the more you perfect this.
That list should be extremely short.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Right now.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
I'm not a scientist and I'm not a chemical engineer,
and I know that that's not always the case, but
we should not always be rushing to try to get
something on the market just because a competitor has it
on the market. Let's make it better again. That's where
the free market competition should really come into play, and
these companies should be asking for that. Make us better,
make us compete right. Ultimately, the free market is what
(25:04):
allowed them to thrive in the first place. Big pharma
is where it is today because we created a free
market system that allowed them to compete against each other.
But now their practices are pushing competition away, and they're
becoming a monopoly. What we need to do is force
them to compete again. I truly believe prices will drop,
competition will grow, research and science will get better. I
(25:28):
think that we're going to start seeing a better return
on the investment that we have made as Americans, not
only at the government level, but as the personal level.
And I think ultimately he could solve a lot of
the problems that we see as a society right now.
But more importantly, it will put the American people first.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
You know, it's interesting because last week we had doctor
Marty McCarey on and he was talking about the antibiotics
the kids take, and he said, you know, most of
these kids are taking antibiotics before age three. And it
was always the situation where they the parents were being
told it might not help, but it's not going to
do harm. And he said, now we've that it actually
can do harm, and it can be permanent harm, and
(26:04):
it can change their microbiome of their gut and cause
all these permanent problems that you have to try to
then reverse. And he said, and we're not telling people that,
like we're not telling parents that that side effect is
like well, this could happen, but you know it probably won't.
It's something that we should actually discuss and say, does
the child need an actual antibiotic because they're going to
(26:26):
get better. We are in a society now where we
want an instant fixed. My kid has a cold, I
want them to be fixed. I need an antibiotic. And
he said, oftentimes parents are pushing to your point. Parents
are going to the medical professional and saying no, they
need an antibiotic, and they're like, i'll give you one,
but they don't really need it, and they're forcing these
medications that they don't realize are actually harming their child
(26:48):
in certain ways. And the antidepressants, I'll go to that
for just a quick second, because when you say there
are side effects that some people don't realize, sometimes the
side effects seem harmless. And I have several people in
my life who have taken antidepressants, and in some cases
it's been like a you lose a parent or you
lose a spouse, and it's like, hey, you're only going
(27:10):
to need to be on this for three months, and
it's going to get you through those three months.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
But they've had permanent side effects.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
In one of them, which I've had multiple people tell
me about is profuse sweating. And even after they're off
of the medication for years, they still have this profuse sweating.
And you think, okay, well still you got through this
time period. But today they would tell you it is
very depressing to have this problem because it's noticeable, it's embarrassing.
(27:37):
We should know these things before we take these medications.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
You're right, we absolutely should.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
And there we also need to keep in mind that quick,
immediate fixes do not always result in long term, permanent fixes. Right,
And so you know what is always immedia. You know,
whether it's an antidepressant, I need three months of help, right,
I'm not strong enough to do it on my own.
I need a little bit of help, or even in
(28:04):
the case i've got a one year old. Right, we're
in that stage of going to the doctor and being
thrown all these immunizations and you know, you need these
shots and you.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Need these vaccines.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
And it's a lot for a first time parent to
be able to take in and understand. And we hope
my wife and I are looking at her, we hope
we're asking the right questions, right, Well, what's this going
to do? Is this something that we could weigh on
and consider when he's a little older, right, Because again,
we don't want there to be any developmental issues. We
don't want his health to be affected, we don't want
(28:33):
his growth to be affected. We don't want anything mental
to happen. And so when you look at all these
pieces again, it comes back to we have to trust
a medical professional that has spent decades of their lives
studying this. But it also means that as consumers we
need to be responsible enough to understand that the dangers
that quick blurb at the end of the commercial is
(28:55):
what we need to be listening to, not to the
fantasy of the fairytale story at the beginning, because in America,
we already have our fairy tale, right. The American dream
is what we're all chasing. None of us are going
to achieve our American dream because we took a prescription.
We're going to achieve the American dream by standing up,
coming together, or putting our arms linked together and walking
(29:17):
towards the horizon together. Right, We're not going to do
it because we took a pill.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
More with Rob Burgess after this, but first I want
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(30:50):
two four safe today. That's eight four four eight two
four safe. Stay tuned for more after this. It's interesting
because you said this election is not going to solve
this issue, and I think.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
That you're right.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
It's very It's just we're just at the beginning of
this where we start to see each campaign talking about
the price of insulin.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I think that's the one that people recognize.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
It's like, if you don't get this drug, you're you're
really in trouble because you're going to die if you
don't have this drug. And so it's the most notable
that people can go out and say, nobody should have
insulin kept from them. It's a much bigger problem than insulin.
We're just focused in on one drug right now, and
that moves the American heartstrings. Okay, she or he is
(31:34):
going to lower the cost of one drug. That's fantastic,
it's not enough. I think that now with RFK out
there talking about all this stuff and how the pharmaceceutical
companies have worked for years.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
There is going to have to be reform at the FDA.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
I think it's going to have to be a much
bigger reform that's going to happen over years. It's probably
going to take a decade, and it's going to have
to be something that both whatever side of the aisle
it is, both sides of the aisle are going to
have to focus on doing what's best for the health
of the American people. And I just hope that they will.
And I appreciate you Rob that you're out there every
day pushing that.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Well, you're absolutely right, massive reform is needed. We believe
that the best way to eat elephants one by at
a time. Right, So let's find something that we can
achieve this year together. Let's find something we can achieve
in two years together. But you're right, there's going to
be a huge lift here. But the good thing is
that this is a bipart is an issue. Right when
you look at polling, Republicans and Democrats equally say that
(32:30):
this is something they're concerned about, right, This is something
that transcends the political spectrum. We just need our politicians
to realize that too, and that's part of the reason
why we're on this bus tour, part of the reason
we're engaging with people like you Tutor on your show.
We want as many people to hear this message as
possible and say, hey, there's an avenue for you to
go ahead and engage with so that hopefully we can
(32:51):
make changes together.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
So tell us one more time where people can find you,
what site they can go to, and a little bit
about the tour.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Our group is Americans for Farmer Reform. You can visit
us at www dot Americans for Pharma Reform dot com.
We're in the middle of our nationwide bus tour, the
Bust Big Pharma Tour. You can go to Bustbigpharma dot
com and see all the news from the bustour pictures.
You can follow us online on social media. We're posting
photos all the time. If we are not going to
(33:19):
be in your community or your state, you can go
ahead and sign the bus virtually right then and there
as well, and hopefully we get to see you out
all out on the road. We'll be in Michigan for
probably another two two and a half.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Weeks awesome, Rob Burgess, thank you so much for being
on today, Thanks d, and thank you all for joining
us on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others,
go to Tutordison podcast dot com or head over to
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts and join us next time on the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Have a blessed day.
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Today, I have a
Rob Burgess with me. He is the executive director of
Americans for Pharma Reform. You guys all know that I
talk a lot about big Pharma on here and what
exactly is happening with big Pharma, And then I found
Rob's information and what he's doing, and I started to
kind of like go down that rabbit hole of what
(00:21):
he's exposed when it comes to big pharma, and I
was like, Wow, this is like way bigger than I thought.
So I'm excited because he is right now on a
nationwide bus tour called Bust Big Pharma Bus Tour so
that people can actually learn about this. But we thought,
you know what, the best thing for us is to
have you on the podcast, Rob and talk about it
(00:42):
right here, and you can tell us everywhere your.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Tour is going to go.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
But let's dig into big pharma. Thanks for joining me,
Thanks for having me to absolutely so your mission is
to raise awareness of pharma reform. We haven't really talked
about pharma reform in the past in like all of
the different ways that big Pharma is connected to education,
connected to the consumer in a weird way in the
(01:06):
United States, that it doesn't happen in any other country,
and how that's affecting pharmaceutical sales, but also the cost
to Americans versus other countries.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
There's just so much.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
So if you can just kind of dive right in,
what do you think is the most important part of
pharma reform?
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Sure, thanks for having me, and you're right. Pharma actually
has its reaches throughout so many different aspects of our
lives right now. And as we've been experiencing a really
terrible economy over the last three and a half years,
I started doing more and more research about what were
some maybe unhighlighted aspects that we're contributing to that factors.
(01:43):
And that's when I started realizing things in the pharmaceutical
space that a lot of Americans might not realize. For example,
we're paying five to seven times more for the same
prescriptions than the rest of the developed world. We are
subsidizing prescriptions worldwide as American consumers. What we're supposed to
be doing in this country right Then you have the
CEOs and the c suites at these pharmaceutical companies making
(02:06):
seven and eight figure salaries and bonuses on the backs
of the American consumer while they're having to make decisions,
do they cut their prescriptions in half, do they even
pick up their prescription right or do they pay the
light bill this month? And those were really things that
bothered me, and we decided it was time for us
to go on a nationwide bus tour. We started in Arizona.
(02:27):
We've been going for about forty days. We're now here
in Michigan. In fact, we were just at the University
of Michigan football game on Saturday. And we find ourselves
in Macinaw today and we're going to be going to
go see President Trump later this week.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
What a great place to stop.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Mcinaw's beautiful and you're here at a great time of year.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The leaves are just changing.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I'm jealous that you're up there, But I want to
get into you said we're paying more than the rest
of the world. Why, I mean to me, that's totally
mind blowing. Is it because we have private insurance that
they just assume we'll pay.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Are they just.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Using us to subsidy subsidize the rest of the world.
What exactly is happening there?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Part of it is an insurance game where yes, there's
now a third party validator that they can charge a
little bit more because they're not charging the consumer directly.
But more importantly than that, you have to look at
how their revenue is actually being spent. Big pharmasts spent
more in the last two years on direct to consumer
advertising on television than they did on research of pharmaceutical drugs.
(03:30):
They spent more to deliver a message to you as
a consumer about a medication that you might not have
the medical training to understand to necessarily know if it
was the right prescription for you, and they spent that
money and then wrote it off as a tax right off.
There was a big pharmaceutical company last year that received
more in tax refunds than they paid in taxes last year.
(03:52):
That's simply unconscious able here in this country. We need
to make sure that we're prioritizing the American consumer. We
need to stop making sure that Americans are making sure
that the same prescription we're paying seventy dollars for is
not seven dollars in France. We need to make sure
that there is an approach that American consumers are priced
first in this market, not last.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, these are American companies for the most part, and
they're doing, and that's how they're getting the tax right
I don't understand how can they get a tax right
off for advertising to consumers?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
How does that even work?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Well? And again they're looking at the totality of everything
they spent money on. But they're saying that's a legitimate
business expense that you know, it's something that they need
to go ahead and make sure that they remain profitable
and that they have profit share and market share and
that their message is getting distributed and so that they
write advertising off. But that's not something that you or
I get to do, right. I don't get to write
(04:45):
off my vehicle because I drive to work every day.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Right, that is out well. Also, other countries don't allow
this advertising. So to me, this is like a double whamming.
Not only do they get to go direct to the consumer,
but then the consumer pays for it, because if they're
getting a tax deduction, I mean that's coming from us.
They're not paying their taxes, so our taxes have to
fill that in.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
How can that possibly be?
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And to your point earlier, I read something that you
had put out and your group is working on that
says that them going direct to the consumer is really
messing up the consumer's relationship with their medical doctor and
their medical doctor's ability to actually give them great medical advice.
Because they see this, they aren't necessarily hearing well. If
(05:30):
you see one commercial, you're not hearing Okay, well this
acts this way, but this other medication might be better
for you. You only hear the benefits, and then you
have that quick laundry list at the end where you
hear that and you're like, my gosh, if I take
this medication, I'm going to die. But the alternative is
that I'm going to have this terrible rash on my
elbows and knees. So I'm going to take the medication
because it has to be the best thing for me.
(05:50):
But their doctor doesn't get to tell them no, probably
not because they've heard this ad exactly right.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
When you have directed consumer advertising in the pharmaceutical space,
those ads are produced in they're cut like movies.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You get to see this great storyline. Yes, this beautiful
woman walking down the street opening up a bakery or
a juice shop, and you know, but she wasn't able
to do it because she had this issue. But this
one medication allowed her to achieve her American dream. Well,
in the real world, that's not what that looks like,
and that's not the way it works. Medical doctors, medical
(06:23):
professionals go to school and they study these medications in depth,
and they need to know how it's affected by one
medication you're taking versus the other. And as consumers, we
don't have that education, we don't have that necessity of
knowing what interacts with one another, and so we just
see the story. We see, you know, that fantasy and
(06:44):
fairy tale that has been painted for us, and we
want to participate in it.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
It was funny when I first started working, when I
was in my twenties, I was working in public relations,
and all of my friends were working as our prescription
drug salespeople, and there was like a massive movement of Suddenly,
this is something I had never heard of before, and
my friends would spend their days.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Going from doctor's office to doctor's office.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Giving free samples, bringing in a lunch, and convincing the
doctor to push a certain medication. Is that something unique
to the United States or is that a normal a
normal situation, because I would think that the doctors would
be getting the information and they would there would be
kind of a different way to do this, But this
would be a weekly meeting where they would expect this
(07:29):
drug salesperson to come in with a lunch. They would
have a lunch every single day in their office from
different drug salespeople, and they would be hawking their newest medication,
which might not actually be new, as you've pointed out,
it might just be a tweak to that medication so
that they can't get a generic right now.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
And I'm not exactly sure how it might work in
different countries, but to some extent, those pharmaceutical reps to
exist worldwide right now, what they are able to do
or how they're able to interact it might be changing.
But that's why we are advocation for the government to
put some guardrails up right. We believe some guardrails towards
reforms important for exactly what you just mentioned is the
(08:08):
fact that as these patents are starting to expire, they're
looking for their most profitable prescriptions, those most profitable drugs,
and they're going to make an insignificant squeak to that formula.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
They're going to do something that does not change the outcome.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
It does not make the medicine better, it does not
change ultimately anything that has happened while it's been protected
by patent. But it's going to renew that patent, it's
going to prevent it from being competed within the free
market by a generic or another outside group. That's something
we don't think is fair that evergreening patent's process. We
think that there needs to be guardrails put up around that, saying, hey,
(08:42):
unless you make a thirty percent change, unless you do
something that actually increases the benefit of your medication, we're
not going to give you that renewal. And we also
think that we need to completely reform that direct to
consumer relationship. You know that these pharmaceutical reps and these
advertising agencies, they need to do a better job of
educating just the doctor, right, just the medical professional. They
(09:03):
don't necessarily need to be bringing lunches in to feed
a staff of sixty when it's only one person actually
writing on the prescription pad. And so we need to
do a better job of making sure that their money
is being spent towards a way that encourages more.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Competition in the market place.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
They're spending more money on research than they are advertising,
and they're not talking directly to consumers or individuals that
can't make an educated, uniform decision for the betterment of
our health.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Well, and that's not something that I've argued, is that
these companies are making a lot of profit, but they
are the leading developers of new medications out there.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
They're the innovators.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
They are putting the money into R and D, and
the United States has always been the leading innovator of
the world. But then I'm reading some of the stuff
that you're putting out, and that's suddenly changing. They're not
so much innovating as they are just focused on profit.
And so those that money instead of going to R
and D is going going into advertising that then they're
(10:01):
getting that tax break on which why wouldn't you do that?
You know you're going to be able to continue to
get the profit. If you put it into R and D,
it's gone. If you put it into an add and
you get a tax break, then it's not gone.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
You've been able to.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Recap re rehab some of that money and then you
can use it to put it into other things and people.
So you have a massive staff of these pharmaceutical reps
and they make very good money. I mean, when I
came out of school, and these guys where my buddy
is out there doing that, I'm like barely making it,
and these folks are making a lot of money. And
(10:34):
then you've got, like you said, these CEOs that are
bringing in a massive amount of money, and yet people
can't afford their medications. And so I look at this
and I think, well, gosh, if you're able to continue
to push this into the market and bring in new
consumers because they're going to their doctor and pushing that
we need this back, we need we need this medication,
then where is all of the profit going If it's
(10:56):
not going to lower the drugs, Well.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
It's going through their pockets. Like you said, you can
see that by how they're treating.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
The C suite.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
But you know, for a long time, Americans, and specifically
the American government, has subsidized that research. Right when you
start looking at the negotiations that our government has made
with the pharmaceutical companies for Medicare and Medicaid prescriptions, we
are funding all that R and D, but at the
same time, we are not receiving the benefit of it
(11:24):
from a cost perspective. Right, we should not be the
bottom tier of the rum when it comes to how
these prescriptions are priced throughout the world. In fact, there
was a hearing a few months ago where one of
the CEOs of a pharmaceutical company was showed the price
for the same drug over in Europe versus the United States,
and it was a significant cost difference. I think it's
(11:46):
about five times more here than it was over there
in Europe. And the simple question was are you making
profit off of that same prescription in Europe or are
you only making profit here in the United States. And
he said, no, we're making profit off of the one
in Europe as well, so they can afford to go
ahead and have these prescriptions cheaper here at home. But
(12:06):
the system has allowed them to explode those costs and
it has forced us as a consumer to bear that cost.
And that's something we absolutely need to change. And it
starts by informing people and educating people, just like we
are here at the bus Big Pharma Bus Tour throughout
Michigan and the rest of the country, and by having
programs like your show Tutor where you're bringing on experts
(12:28):
in shedding light right sometimes the best disinfectant. But we
need to inform the American people about what's exactly happening,
and what they can do to encourage their members of
Congress to take actions.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Well, that's what I was going to say next, is
that the next step is to have an investigation or
have Congress hold them accountable.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Is this a monopoly situation?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Because I think too often this is a cycle where
the congressmen or the local elected official they actually are
getting their funding from Big Pharma, and then that whole
cycle starts. Well, they're not going to go investigate Big Pharma.
It's one of their biggest donors. They need to win again,
they have to win every two years, so they just
(13:07):
let it keep happening. What is the answer and how
can is it that it has to come from Congress?
And is that an investigation or is that Hey, we
believe that you're running a monopoly because you won't allow
anybody else to make these drugs.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Well, they definitely have a monopolistic practice, right, you know,
that's very apparent, especially when you start looking at that
evergreen of the patent process. But we think that you know,
this is going to be a multi year, multi election
cycle process, and so the first thing that we're trying
to do is a raise awareness and your listeners your viewers.
They can go to Americans for Farmer Reform dot com
or Bustbigpharma dot com. And if we don't have the
(13:45):
bus in an area where they're going to be and
they can't have the opportunity to sign their name on
this mobile petition showing their support, they can sign a
virtual version of the bus there on the website so
that they still participate. The second thing that we need
to do is we need to encourage members Congress to
sign our petition. The petition's very straightforward. It's saying they're
going to put the American consumer first, and it's saying
(14:07):
that they're going to put guardrails up around advertising, and
it's going to say that they're going to start pushing
back against the patent process right. And so by doing
those three things, we think that's something that we can
win on and it does not necessarily alienate quote unquote
Big Pharma from donating to these politicians. It's something that
Big Farma knows are getting away with. And if we
start pulling it back and we start just.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Do you have many of our congressmen? Do you have
many of our congressmen and women who have agreed.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
We're working on it.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
So the pledge is something that we're playing on rolling
out this week, and we're going to start trying to
put it into their hands right away. But again, this
is something that we don't think is going to be
decided between now and the end of the election, right
this is going to be a multi year process.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
We're in it for the long haul, and it's something that.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
We're going to be continuing to spread this message throughout
the country in on Capitol Hill, and we don't really
care about how long it takes us. We're going to
make sure that our voice is heard in the American
people's issues and concerns are heard by not only are
elected officials, but also by far.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
So we have some data that during the COVID crisis,
seven out of ten of the big farm of companies
were spending more money on sales and marketing than research
and development. Does that mean that they were personally spending
more money and that the government was funding R and
D or is that even with government funding, more money
was going into talking directly to the consumer then figuring
(15:34):
out what the next big product should be to combat
the COVID crisis.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
So my understanding from the way that money broke down
was government was funding the R and D entirely, and
they were taking all the other revenue that they had,
and instead of pointing it towards R and D or
to help develop some type of vaccine or other type
of tool to combat that pandemic, they were focused on
their payroll, in staffing and advertising to their reach. Because again,
(16:01):
if you remember, we were having multiple versions of a
COVID vaccine competing against each other, some that was one dose,
some that were multi dose, and they were all out
there competing with doctors in hospitals saying, hey, we're going
to be the one that you want to prescribe, right,
and so again it's it's that jocking effort so that
you know, are you partnered with a certain doctors group
(16:22):
or a certain hospital group, and you know you know that, Okay,
Pfizer drugs are the ones that could be the priority
to be prescribed over Johnson and Johnson drugs.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So what keeps us safe from the government then stopping
other medications from being used based on the fact that well,
we've we've we just sank all this money into research
and development on these COVID nineteen vaccines, and we want
people to use those.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
But because you.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Know, I look back on this and I remember suddenly
it was like, well, these medications are stopping people who
are sick from getting sick or dying. And it was
like no, no, no, no, no, you can't use those. And
then there was this there were people behind the scenes
that are saying, oh, they don't want you to use
that because those are older medications that don't make that
much money. They've already sunk all the money into R
(17:06):
and D for these new medications. They want to push
the public to the new medications. How much of this
could be the government working behind the scenes to say, hey, yeah,
you can put out these ads. We'll fund the R
and D put out these ads, and then we'll stop
people from actually prescribing these old meds, which in Michigan
you had your license taken away if you prescribed an
(17:29):
old med To your point of the doctor isn't allowed
to make the decisions anymore because you've got other people
coming in and saying no, no, no, we know better.
In this case, it wasn't the consumer. I mean, the
consumer sometimes came into the doctor and the doctor said, hey,
my hands are tired, I can't give it to you.
But it wasn't the consumer who was demanding the new
COVID medication. It was the pharmaceutical companies and the government,
(17:52):
and in certain cases the medical professional was saying, I
think I can solve it with this.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
No no, no. If you touch that, your licenses to provoked.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
So we've seen this across industries, right for a long time,
and it's something that you have talked about for years.
It is the unaccountable, unelected government bureaucrat who thinks that
they know how best to run you and your family's
life better than you, your doctor, your teachers.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
That is completely wrong. So a lot of it starts
at that federal level, with this revolving door between big
pharma and the bureaucracy of the FDA. That's something that
we absolutely need to put a hold on. And really
it's something that you could probably accomplish by saying, if
you start in pharma and come to government, you cannot
then become a lobbyist for pharma again, right, And so
(18:41):
it could be a lobbying band type situation that Congress
puts into effect. On government bureaucrats. But more importantly, I
think the big issue here is the FDA itself. A
lot of people don't realize how much control they actually have,
not only over the approval process of medications and pharmaceutical drugs,
but also so generics, what gets to hit the market, win,
(19:03):
how quickly can it get rolled out? Where can it
get rolled out? They have so much leanway leeway of
making these decisions on their own. But the seven heads
of the independent arms of the FDA are not Senate confirmable.
They are political appointees, which means your direct representation does
not have the ability to confirm up and down on
(19:24):
a yay or nay vote for the person that's in
charge of the arm of the FDA that does pharmaceutical drugs,
for the arm of the FDA that proves tobacco policy,
the arm of the FDA that oversees the food quality systems.
That is all appointed at the politician level, from the
White House down. And so we need to change that
(19:45):
effect too once again. By having our direct representative representatives
have a voice, we now get to hold somebody accountable,
and if something happens at a medication level, we can
then go to our members of congressation, Hey, you voted
for him. You told us that these the right people
to make these decisions for us, and look what has happened,
and that's something we ultimately need a championship.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Interesting, and I think that this is something that the
American people are suddenly just kind of becoming aware of
because we inherently trusted the FDA before, we trusted all
of these three letter agencies who were out there. Oh,
they have their best interest in at heart, of course,
We're just going to blindly trust them. And then I
think after the pandemic and everything that happened there, people
(20:27):
started to go, you know, I don't know, I wish
that we had a little bit more control over our
own decisions. I wanted to step into antidepressants. I know
you've worked on profit and professional interests misleading us about antidepressants.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Go into a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Well, again, I think that this is a situation where
for so long a certain drug, antidepressants in this case,
have been not only advertised but then hawked so aggressively
on a specific part of the medical community that there's
all there's almost a feel like they are required to
(21:05):
have this prescription. We have to give this out. This
is just part of the approach to solving the problem.
And then rather than by actually having that conversation patient
by patient.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Right, it might not be the best fit for me.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I might need to do group therapy, right, I might
need to take long walks outside in the sun.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
There might be something completely different that I need. But
because the pharmaceutical companies in the industry have spent so
much time advertising this as the cure, right, this is
the way to stop. This is the way to change things.
We have put all of a sudden, all the other
approaches that we have had for generations to the side,
and we said we can rely on chemicals. Now we
(21:45):
can rely on this approach. And that's not necessarily the
best thing that we can be doing for society, whether
it's for adults like us or our children. Right, we
really need to be making better decisions at the individual
level rather than relying on what a pharmaceutical company or
pharmaceuical rep I was telling us that is industry specific
or is industry practice.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, there's certainly this new movement out there that to
talk about food being medicine. Really how you eat is
important and how what you eat affects how you behave,
how you feel, your depression level, your anxiety level, certainly
your weight. We know that there's been a lot of
push for ozepic in kids, and that's been kind of shocking.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I think for a lot of parents, it's like, wait
a minute.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Now you're going to take my kid and you're going
to put them on a lifelong medication that had historically
been for someone who had a disease like diabetes, and
now you're saying that my child has a disease as well.
And that uptick in Well, this goes to big pharma
and big food because I think that a lot of
the things that are happening in our food industry are
then pushing people into the pharma industry.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Oh okay, well this is you. This is your quick
fix for that.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
We've also seen that I think with the antidepressants, is
like we need a quick fix. This kid is and
I would say this kind of stimulant drugs too. It's
like this kid bops and weaves too much in class
and he's always not paying attention, and this one is
really struggling with anxiety and too nervous about tests and
I've seen it in my own life where the doctor
(23:11):
was like, you know what the best thing is to
immediately put them on a medication.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
I'm like, no, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (23:17):
And I don't think parents historically have pushed back against this,
but now suddenly parents are saying, wait a minute, you
tell me what the side effects are, because that long
list that they read at the end of the commercial
has some pretty terrifying side effects. Is what my child
is dealing with right now, worse than what could happen
if they go on this drug. And some of those
(23:38):
drugs have permanent side effects.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Permanent, but also on how many of those drugs were
originally developed for another solution. Right, you just mentioned those epics, right,
that was a diabet.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
That's interesting, right, that was never.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Supposed to deal with weight loss. It just happened to
be one of the side effects that was mentioned at
the end. Then they realized, oh, it's much more effective
as a weight loss drug than it ever was as
a diabetes drug. We're gonna go ahead and remarket this right,
We're going to charge more for it now because again
they realized the side effect something that they didn't want
(24:12):
to happen. Originally was a better exponent, a better cure
than what they initially had solved for. So now they're
remarketing drugs that had completely different R and D applications.
But you're right, some of these side effects are deeply permanent,
and it's something that we need as consumers, and the
American people need to be saying, how much time are
(24:32):
you really spending on the R and D. The idea
should be the more you spend on R and D,
this more you study this, the more you perfect this.
That list should be extremely short.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Right now.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
I'm not a scientist and I'm not a chemical engineer,
and I know that that's not always the case, but
we should not always be rushing to try to get
something on the market just because a competitor has it
on the market. Let's make it better again. That's where
the free market competition should really come into play, and
these companies should be asking for that. Make us better,
make us compete right. Ultimately, the free market is what
(25:04):
allowed them to thrive in the first place. Big pharma
is where it is today because we created a free
market system that allowed them to compete against each other.
But now their practices are pushing competition away, and they're
becoming a monopoly. What we need to do is force
them to compete again. I truly believe prices will drop,
competition will grow, research and science will get better. I
(25:28):
think that we're going to start seeing a better return
on the investment that we have made as Americans, not
only at the government level, but as the personal level.
And I think ultimately he could solve a lot of
the problems that we see as a society right now.
But more importantly, it will put the American people first.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
You know, it's interesting because last week we had doctor
Marty McCarey on and he was talking about the antibiotics
the kids take, and he said, you know, most of
these kids are taking antibiotics before age three. And it
was always the situation where they the parents were being
told it might not help, but it's not going to
do harm. And he said, now we've that it actually
can do harm, and it can be permanent harm, and
(26:04):
it can change their microbiome of their gut and cause
all these permanent problems that you have to try to
then reverse. And he said, and we're not telling people that,
like we're not telling parents that that side effect is
like well, this could happen, but you know it probably won't.
It's something that we should actually discuss and say, does
the child need an actual antibiotic because they're going to
(26:26):
get better. We are in a society now where we
want an instant fixed. My kid has a cold, I
want them to be fixed. I need an antibiotic. And
he said, oftentimes parents are pushing to your point. Parents
are going to the medical professional and saying no, they
need an antibiotic, and they're like, i'll give you one,
but they don't really need it, and they're forcing these
medications that they don't realize are actually harming their child
(26:48):
in certain ways. And the antidepressants, I'll go to that
for just a quick second, because when you say there
are side effects that some people don't realize, sometimes the
side effects seem harmless. And I have several people in
my life who have taken antidepressants, and in some cases
it's been like a you lose a parent or you
lose a spouse, and it's like, hey, you're only going
(27:10):
to need to be on this for three months, and
it's going to get you through those three months.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
But they've had permanent side effects.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
In one of them, which I've had multiple people tell
me about is profuse sweating. And even after they're off
of the medication for years, they still have this profuse sweating.
And you think, okay, well still you got through this
time period. But today they would tell you it is
very depressing to have this problem because it's noticeable, it's embarrassing.
(27:37):
We should know these things before we take these medications.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
You're right, we absolutely should.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
And there we also need to keep in mind that quick,
immediate fixes do not always result in long term, permanent fixes. Right,
And so you know what is always immedia. You know,
whether it's an antidepressant, I need three months of help, right,
I'm not strong enough to do it on my own.
I need a little bit of help, or even in
(28:04):
the case i've got a one year old. Right, we're
in that stage of going to the doctor and being
thrown all these immunizations and you know, you need these
shots and you.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Need these vaccines.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
And it's a lot for a first time parent to
be able to take in and understand. And we hope
my wife and I are looking at her, we hope
we're asking the right questions, right, Well, what's this going
to do? Is this something that we could weigh on
and consider when he's a little older, right, Because again,
we don't want there to be any developmental issues. We
don't want his health to be affected, we don't want
(28:33):
his growth to be affected. We don't want anything mental
to happen. And so when you look at all these
pieces again, it comes back to we have to trust
a medical professional that has spent decades of their lives
studying this. But it also means that as consumers we
need to be responsible enough to understand that the dangers
that quick blurb at the end of the commercial is
(28:55):
what we need to be listening to, not to the
fantasy of the fairytale story at the beginning, because in America,
we already have our fairy tale, right. The American dream
is what we're all chasing. None of us are going
to achieve our American dream because we took a prescription.
We're going to achieve the American dream by standing up,
coming together, or putting our arms linked together and walking
(29:17):
towards the horizon together. Right, We're not going to do
it because we took a pill.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
More with Rob Burgess after this, but first I want
to tell you about my partners at Saber in these
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and today Saber is the number one made in the
(29:44):
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(30:07):
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and your family the opportunity to protect yourselves and your home.
But Saber doesn't stop there. In addition to their pepper
spray and pepper gel, Saber offers stun guns for personal
protection and bear and mountain lion spray for outdoor adventurers.
(30:29):
They also provide essential home security items like door security
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Protect yourself and your family with Sabers full range of
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Sabre radio dot com or call eight four four eight
(30:50):
two four safe today. That's eight four four eight two
four safe. Stay tuned for more after this. It's interesting
because you said this election is not going to solve
this issue, and I think.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
That you're right.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
It's very It's just we're just at the beginning of
this where we start to see each campaign talking about
the price of insulin.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I think that's the one that people recognize.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
It's like, if you don't get this drug, you're you're
really in trouble because you're going to die if you
don't have this drug. And so it's the most notable
that people can go out and say, nobody should have
insulin kept from them. It's a much bigger problem than insulin.
We're just focused in on one drug right now, and
that moves the American heartstrings. Okay, she or he is
(31:34):
going to lower the cost of one drug. That's fantastic,
it's not enough. I think that now with RFK out
there talking about all this stuff and how the pharmaceceutical
companies have worked for years.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
There is going to have to be reform at the FDA.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
I think it's going to have to be a much
bigger reform that's going to happen over years. It's probably
going to take a decade, and it's going to have
to be something that both whatever side of the aisle
it is, both sides of the aisle are going to
have to focus on doing what's best for the health
of the American people. And I just hope that they will.
And I appreciate you Rob that you're out there every
day pushing that.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Well, you're absolutely right, massive reform is needed. We believe
that the best way to eat elephants one by at
a time. Right, So let's find something that we can
achieve this year together. Let's find something we can achieve
in two years together. But you're right, there's going to
be a huge lift here. But the good thing is
that this is a bipart is an issue. Right when
you look at polling, Republicans and Democrats equally say that
(32:30):
this is something they're concerned about, right, This is something
that transcends the political spectrum. We just need our politicians
to realize that too, and that's part of the reason
why we're on this bus tour, part of the reason
we're engaging with people like you Tutor on your show.
We want as many people to hear this message as
possible and say, hey, there's an avenue for you to
go ahead and engage with so that hopefully we can
(32:51):
make changes together.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
So tell us one more time where people can find you,
what site they can go to, and a little bit
about the tour.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Our group is Americans for Farmer Reform. You can visit
us at www dot Americans for Pharma Reform dot com.
We're in the middle of our nationwide bus tour, the
Bust Big Pharma Tour. You can go to Bustbigpharma dot
com and see all the news from the bustour pictures.
You can follow us online on social media. We're posting
photos all the time. If we are not going to
(33:19):
be in your community or your state, you can go
ahead and sign the bus virtually right then and there
as well, and hopefully we get to see you out
all out on the road. We'll be in Michigan for
probably another two two and a half.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Weeks awesome, Rob Burgess, thank you so much for being
on today, Thanks d, and thank you all for joining
us on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others,
go to Tutordison podcast dot com or head over to
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts and join us next time on the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Have a blessed day.
Host
Tudor Dixon
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