Martha Rosenberg

Martha Rosenberg is an investigative reporter whose work has appeared in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Consumer Reports, Public Citizen, the Center for Health Journalism at USC Annenberg, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, and other outlets. She studied at Rush Medical School and writes on health care, food, medicine, and public policy.

Rosenberg’s reporting has been cited by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Public Library of Science Biology, ScienceDirect, the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy, the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, Britannica, National Geographic, Hastings Law Journal, and Wikipedia. She is the author of several books, including Multidisciplinary Management of Chronic Pain: A Practical Guide for Clinicians, Born With a Junk Food Deficiency, Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Lies, and Food, Clothes, Men, Gas and Other Problems. She publishes on Substack, OpEdNews, and her Amazon author page.

Why the press stays silent on zoonotic viruses

Martha Rosenberg

Conditions and Diseases

June 2, 2026

Whether the spread of bird flu to dairy cows, pigs, cats, dogs and seals or the spread of COVID-19 to deer, minks and zoo animals, the press is often mum about zoonotic viruses when they jump species.

Who, for example, knows that Ebola can spread to dogs, pigs and antelopes? Is non-reporting of virus activity to forestall panic or protect commercial markets?

The spread of animal viruses is caused by domestication, warfare, …

RFK’s food pyramid is a win for industry, not health

Martha Rosenberg

Health Policy

May 27, 2026

When Robert Kennedy Jr. (RFK) was confirmed as HHS director last February, overseeing the CDC, NIH, CMS, and FDA, many worried that modern medicines would become unavailable or scarce.

Instead, industry has received unexpected windfalls and green lights from the new policies. Exhibit A: the exoneration of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) from its well-documented links to cancer and cardiovascular effects. The “timing theories” at Wake Forest that helped turn HRT on …

3 new pharma marketing tactics every physician should know

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

May 22, 2026

Weeks after a FiercePharma webinar told drug reps to make the lab worker their first sales point and not the patient’s doctor (to avoid a delay in “therapy adoption”), the three-day Fierce Pharma Engage conference in San Diego unveiled more aggressive, stealth sales tactics.

At the well-funded meet-and-greet with 700 well-turned-out attendees, 150 speakers, and 56 corporate sponsors, we learned that:

1. AI will take over interactions with doctors (HCPs)

Whether …

5 health-destroying myths perpetuated by marketing

Martha Rosenberg

Conditions and Diseases

May 16, 2026

Scent beads and laundry additives are innocuous

If you are online or on broadcast you cannot miss it: personal care corporations telling you that you stink. Even if you are using deodorant on “those places,” your body smells all over, say a disturbing number of ads, and the odor “transfers” all over your house. Just saying.

The manic ads for dryer sheets, detergents, fabric softeners, and scent “love stories” do not mention …

Iterative mindset versus AI and GLP-1s: Why shortcuts weaken the brain

Martha Rosenberg

Health Technology

February 10, 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the biggest economic craze since cryptocurrencies, and GLP-1 agonists are the biggest health craze since statins. But are they as good for users as producers and Wall Street? Will they implode like their predecessors?

We spoke with behavior change expert Kyra Bobinet, MD, author of Unstoppable Brain: The New Neuroscience That Frees Us From Failure, Eases Our Stress, and Creates Lasting Change. She maintains that both …

Understanding alternative drug funding programs

Martha Rosenberg

Health Policy

December 20, 2025

As elected officials and citizens brace for the possible expiration of federal subsidies for health insurance premiums, many wonder if there are alternatives to the confusing rebate/copay/deductible/premium drug coverage word salad (see: PSAOs, GPOs, NADACs, ASOs, MLRs, AWPs, WACs, U&Cs, MACs, BERs, GERs, DFERs, GDRs, NDCs, DIRs, and ERISAs).

Just because patients don’t understand the opaque layers/players behind the drug procurement affordability crisis, doesn’t mean that lawmakers do, say experts (which …

Are you neurodivergent or just bored?

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

November 18, 2025

Do you get bored when reading a boring book? Do you struggle to concentrate when you haven’t had enough sleep? Do you have difficulty following instructions, make careless mistakes and forget to return calls? Are you sometimes the last one to “get” a joke?

You may be “suffering from” with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and are “neurodivergent” and “on the spectrum.”

Today’s ASD “neurodivergence” craze has spawned at least two lucrative and …

Read more…

Are you neurodivergent or just bored?

Drug giants face suit over hidden cancer risks

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

September 20, 2025

Bridgett Brown, a resident of California, developed breast cancer from using brand-name and generic versions of the antipsychotics Risperdal (risperidone) and Zyprexa (olanzapine) says a new lawsuit from the Wisner Baum law firm.

Neither Brown or her two prescribing physicians knew or “had reason to know” that the drugs could cause breast cancer since the drug manufacturers “obfuscated and disclaimed such risks while promoting these dangerous, expensive drugs over safer, …

How drug companies profit by inventing diseases

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

September 4, 2025

Funding from direct-to-consumer (DTC) “ask your doctor” drug ads has captured news media outlets and all but blocked important health stories like these. Read on.

1. “Hormone replacement therapy” (HRT) is back.

It is said that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and nowhere is this more evident than the re-marketing of HRT to menopausal women who do not remember the first debacle (which increased the risk …

How drugmakers manipulate your health from diagnosis to prescription

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

June 27, 2025

It is said that 57 percent of U.S. doctors receive drugmaker/industry funding and 66 percent of U.S. adults are now on prescription drugs. Any correlation?

Drug ads now cast such a wide “symptom net,” comedian Chris Rock said he expected to hear, “Do you fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning? You might be suffering from ….”

Here are six ways drugmakers hijack U.S. medicine

Diagnosing. Once upon a time …

Conflicts of interest are eroding trust in U.S. health agencies

Martha Rosenberg

Health Policy

May 8, 2025

Why has faith in government health agencies never been lower? Because conflicts of interest (COIs) have never been higher.

At the FDA, concerns about drugmakers “buying” drug approvals go back to passage of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) in 1992. Since then, the many doctors with research and speaker grants, drug stocks, and past employment with drugmakers heighten concerns. Worse, many major drug trials that claim to show …

How drug companies turned “depression” into a billion-dollar industry

Martha Rosenberg

Conditions and Diseases

February 7, 2025

Once upon a time, anxiety was anxiety. Maybe you were going for a root canal, taking a flight when you were a nervous flier, or meeting your in-laws for the first time, so you had “nerves.”

That was then. Sensing an untapped market, drugmakers who funded writers of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or “DSM” (the Bible for mental conditions) recast anxiety as “really depression,” and suddenly everyone …

The untold truths behind overdiagnosis and why it matters to your health

Martha Rosenberg

Conditions and Diseases

December 4, 2024

An interview with Jerome Hoffman, MD, professor emeritus at UCLA.

Martha Rosenberg: As professor emeritus at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), you engaged in what is laughingly called in academics the “triple threat” of research, teaching, and clinical work for 30 years. Can you please summarize a little of what you did?

Jerome Hoffman: You’re right – I spent my career as an old-style academic, doing those three types of work. …

Are you taking FDA-unapproved drugs without knowing it?

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

November 6, 2024

If you think the labyrinth of U.S. government agencies and congressional subcommittees is complicated, be grateful you are not a pharmacy owner! Just to get your drugs reimbursed, you must navigate a river of upstream, midstream, and downstream suppliers, health plans and insurers, employers and other payers (including federal and state governments), rebate aggregators, “white and brown baggers,” and an alphabet soup of entities/concepts called things like PSAOs, GPOs, NADACs, …

How drug and soap commercials are manipulating you

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

October 5, 2024

Having worked as a copywriter and creative director at some of the world’s top ad agencies, including McCann Erickson (now McCann Worldgroup), I am vehemently critical of new advertising. Why? I know the tricks and how they manipulate well — think the old TV series Mad Men.

Leading the list of ads that I hate are direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug ads which began in the late 1990s. I am especially critical of …

Why isn’t medical advertising regulated like other advertising?

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

September 7, 2024

As long as you live, you will never hear an article from news media contending that “America Runs On Duncan.” Why? Because the line is a marketing allegation created by the advertising company and designed to sell product.

Yet news media repeat medical claims from drug makers found in journals like they are news, which gives Pharma companies free advertising and can mislead consumers and patients.

The most recent example is the …

Are rapid weight loss drugs hiding the real obesity problem?

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

August 10, 2024

According to some academics, in 2019, a ban on junk food advertising across London’s entire public transport network—foods and drinks high in fat and salt and ads for foods–resulted in the prevention of 100,000 obesity cases. Yet the U.S. love affair with the new semaglutide-based weight loss drugs like Ozempic gives junk food advertising and availability a huge pass.

Drug makers and Wall Street are pleased that instead of changing …

Drug prices and fast approvals can harm patients

Martha Rosenberg

Medications

November 23, 2023

An excerpt from Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Lies.

Few fail to be shocked at the rising prices of some prescription drugs. “Drug companies have raised prices relentlessly for decades while manipulating the patent system and other laws to delay competition from lower-priced generics,” reported the House Committee on Oversight …

An alarming rise in military suicides: Unveiling hidden crisis and urgent need for action

Martha Rosenberg

Health Policy

June 23, 2023

During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, suicides among active-duty troops were frequently reported. Since then, news reports have subsided but the suicides have not. In fact, a 2022 report from the Defense Suicide Prevention Office revealed that there were more suicides in 2021 than any other year since the September 11 attacks. According to Army Times, suicide deaths among active-duty troops in 2021 “climbed …

Fool women twice? Drug makers revive menopause as a “disease.”

Martha Rosenberg

Conditions and Diseases

March 8, 2023

In the words of the late soccer great Pelé spoofed on Saturday Night Live, women’s health has been “very, very good” for drug makers. In 2002, 61 million prescriptions were written for women in the U.S. for hormones to treat the so-called “disease” of menopause (which was once treated with electroshock therapy—yes, ECT).

Until the government-sponsored Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) found in 2002 that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) …