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Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 10:00 AM EDT
Our Daily Meds
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America’s health care costs are breaking budgets all over, but the tab for pharmaceuticals just keeps rising.

In 1980, Americans spent $12 billion on prescription drugs. Now it’s more like $200 billion. More than any other country — and yet we don’t live longer than others.

Reporter Melody Petersen asked what’s going on. What she found was shocking conflicts of interest. Medical professionals co-opted by drug companies for shady research and non-stop marketing. It looks like a scandal of pushers.

This hour, On Point: Our daily meds, and a nation hooked on prescription drugs.

- Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Melody Petersen, an award-winning former reporter for The New York Times and The San Jose Mercury News, and the author of “Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs.”

Daniel Carlat, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and editor-in-chief of The Carlat Psychiatry Report.

 

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