The co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine takes exception to Pharma’s portrayal in Sicko:
Mr. Moore could have framed the real problems with pharmaceutical companies by asking the right questions. How can we eliminate marketing practices that unduly influence clinicians by providing unethical incentives? Does direct-to-consumer advertising mislead the public by creating the notion of magic medicines without side effects? Do we benefit from companies developing yet another hair-loss or potency product while diseases with a much smaller market go ignored? Can the federal government become the sole purchaser of drugs without eliminating the profit that drives companies to make them? And does society benefit from the tax that is included in the price of every drug because of massive litigation?But Mr. Moore yielded to the zeitgeist, vilifying companies and their lobbyists in an easy, populist act that failed to educate his viewers.
