Behind the Bastards
Part One: The Vioxx Scandal: How Big Pharma Killed More Americans Than Vietnam
Tue, 10 Dec 2024
Robert sits down with Dr. Kaveh Hoda to talk about Vioxx, a pain medication released by pharmaceutical giant Merck even though they knew it caused fatal heart attacks. (2 Part Series)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the Vioxx scandal about?
And so this one-two punch, it really is responsible. I think that's very salient what you said. It's really responsible for a lot of, I mean, for like RFK is about to be the director of health and human services, right? Like it has a lot to do with that because this is hard for people to imagine. Like folks my age, I have always grown up with big pharma being like the devil, right?
In part because like as soon as I turned 18, 19, I was hanging out with a lot of hippies. But in part because like there were a lot of like really, really high body count pharmaceutical company scandals. And it is hard for some people to remember that like –
pharmaceutical companies used to be very popular and well-regarded in a lot of cases, in part because the generation that was kind of running the world in the 80s and 90s had largely lived through and were still close to Oh, polio is this nightmare that just sweeps through and devastates like a generation.
You know, you have these flus and then suddenly you have half as many friends after the flu passes. And that stops being a thing. And they're really the first generation, you know, kind of the later boomers that didn't have to deal with that. But we're close enough to it to like really appreciate like, wow, medical science did us a solid. Yeah. And we've drifted just forever.
Far enough from that now that people have forgotten and are revising whole parts of history. And I mean, part of the problem is that shit like the Vioxx scandal and like the Purdue pharmaceutical scandals are closer to us than than, for example, fucking people being in iron lungs or whatever. Recency bias is a hell of a thing.
But since time immemorial, mankind has struggled against a terrible and implacable enemy, pain. Luckily for us, Mother Nature has provided a perfect painkiller, opium, that can be used as the basis for a variety of excellent medicines that really do exactly what they say they're going to do.
Unfortunately, these medicines come with a downside, which is that when you start taking them, you might not ever want to stop taking them. For some people, this destroys their lives. Let me take a sip of my Kratom tea. Sponsored. And since all the health cops out there don't like people pill-popping like Dr. House, even though he made it look incredibly sexy. Did he?
Did he?
Fucking hate that show. Oh, man. You're not not a house fan, huh?
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Chapter 2: How did Vioxx become a leading pain medication?
No, it's just so ridiculous. I mean, all of those shows. Scrubs is the only one that's watchable for me.
Scrubs. Yeah, I mean, I did rewatch. I like to imagine that the movie Platoon is like a like the the what you call it? The prequel. the prequel to John C. McGinley said it. Yeah. That's why Dr. Cox is the way he is. He had to spend that night hiding under his friend's bodies in a trench line. He had to watch Willem Dafoe die. Yeah. Spoilers for the movie Platoon, which is older than most of you.
Might be older than me. I don't remember when Platoon came out. Anyway, so because of, you know, health cops don't like people becoming horrible pill addicts and destroying their lives.
there's a market a massive market for anyone who can create a thing that is an effective painkiller that doesn't also inspire people to break into cars for drug money right there's a lot of money in a painkiller that does not have the kind of abuse potential that opiates have acetaminophen was discovered back in the 1880s but it took us until the 1940s to actually figure out how to use it as a drug
And for reasons that are more complex than it's really worth getting into, because of how it was discovered, acetaminophen could never be patented. Right. Which means pharmaceutical companies are not super attracted to acetaminophen. Right. Because like, well, you know, you can't only sell it for so much if everyone can make the damn thing.
This meant that pharmaceutical companies had to get creative marketing it in order to make it profitable. As a result, Tylenol became a foundational part of the marketing drug story. McNeil, the company that started selling acetaminophen in the U.S., initially framed it as a painkiller for children. And the way the ad campaign that they use is very weird.
For some reason, and I've never found out why, but for unclear reasons, they had a huge number of toy fire trucks. And the way that they first sold Tylenol was they like stuffed fire trucks to the brim with pills of Tylenol and like made that. That was their marketing ploy to like get little parents to buy Tylenol for their small children.
Kids have always loved fire trucks.
Kids love Tylenol too. They love their Tylenol.
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Chapter 3: What were the known risks associated with Vioxx?
Listen to the Away Days podcast, reporting from the underbelly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
After a crime, you read the headlines, but do you know the story?
At the time that I called the police, he knew I had called him and left the house with a firearm and was texting me that he was gonna use it.
I'm Hannah Smith. And I'm Patia Eaton. We host The Knife, a podcast from the Exactly Right Network that cuts to the heart of the story. Through in-depth interviews and candid conversations, we'll bring you firsthand accounts of people living through the ripple effects of crime.
Most of us don't know the legal process. And because they always tell you this word closure, I really wish people would stop using that word because there is no such thing as closure.
These are the scars that are left behind. These are the voices you haven't heard. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to The Knife on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season 1. I just knew him as a kid. Long, silent voices from his past came forward.
And he was just staring at me.
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Chapter 4: Why did Merck ignore warnings about Vioxx?
And they had secrets of their own to share.
I'm Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.
I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.
Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.
I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.
If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.
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Chapter 5: What were the consequences of the Vioxx scandal?
I never expected to find myself in this place. Now, I need to tell you how I got here.
At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.
Bone Valley Season 2. Jeremy.
Jeremy, I want to tell you something.
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Hi, listeners. I'm Melissa Jeltsin, host of What Happened to Talena Zarr. It's the story of a woman who disappears in the early days of COVID lockdowns and the group of online sleuths who try to find her.
I didn't want to be talked out of this plan. After I post this, I am turning off my phone for exactly this reason.
I kept just kind of asking everybody, anyone else think this is strange?
You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk. I'm out there. I'm an action kind of girl.
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