An aphorism much favored by my fellow dipsomaniacs goes thus: “Dogs are smarter than people. A dog won’t eat or drink anything that has made him sick in the past.” In other words, fill up Fido’s water bowl with Booker’s,…
The New Yorker’s Patrick Radden Keefe tries to blame a drug company for the current opiate epidemic. His piece nicely illustrates the government’s malfeasance, but Keefe puts the blame elsewhere. Tucked in the middle of the report, though, is this…
As a young law student at Yale, I had the great honor of studying Constitutional Law under the genius-hero, Robert Bork. He later came to grief because of the attacks on his ethics led by Teddy Kennedy. What Bob Bork…
President Trump’s declaration that opioid abuse is a public health emergency is sparking debate about addiction. Tragically, myths and misinformation are blocking the path to preventing more deaths. Start with the causes of the opioid crisis. On Face the Nation, New Jersey…
It is a cliché in Washington that the war on drugs has seen a comeback, thanks almost entirely to the efforts of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Whether that comeback is as big as advertised is a matter of some debate,…
For months, the pharmaceutical industry’s consistent disregard of consumers and bad press has seemed like a setup that was missing a punchline. Critics of the industry have been consistently frustrated as we wait for the other shoe to drop. These…
When the Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis advised the President to declare a national emergency to deal with the overdose epidemic, HHS Secretary Tom Price wisely suggested that this step wouldn’t be particularly useful: “[T]he opioid…
The crisis of confidence in the pharmaceutical industry remains one of the least well-reported elements of contemporary politics. And despite numerous scandals surrounding mismanagement and price gouging by Pharma companies, the proverbial big Kahuna of the industry’s scandals is undoubtedly…
There is a hazard associated with reading up on something for a few hours and then dashing off an article — you may miss something important, making it obvious to all that you have no idea what you’re talking about….
So the Republicans are murdering tens of thousands of people with their Obamacare replacement, according to the headlines and tweets I keep seeing. I think they’ve got it backwards, though. It’s Obamacare that’s killing people, and just two classes of…
