YouSaid · the spoken record

John Abramson

lines on the record: 108
first: 2022-02-11
most recent: 2022-02-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Alexa, I wanted back to you. Thanks for engaging in this conversation, for creating the space to have it and creating a listenership that is interested in understanding serious ideas. And I really appreciate the conversation.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's to care about something and do your best with it. Whether it's being a doctor and trying to make sure that the greatest number of people get the best health care, or it's a gardener who wants to have the most beautiful plants, or it's a grandparent who wants to have a good relationship with their grandchildren. But whatever it is, That gives you a sense of meaning as long as it doesn't hurt other people Really commit yourself to it. That commitment, that being in that commitment for me is the meaning of life.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's a little hard. I think so. If I know, you know, you can't take the ride if you know what it's going to end well. It's not the real ride, it's just a ride. But I haven't gone through the whole thing, I definitely freed me of a sense of anxiety about death. And it said to me, do your best every day because it's going to end sometime.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's liberating. Very liberal. I mean, I'm serious. I was close and not too long ago. Um, It was a sense of this may be the way it ends. I've done my best. It's not been perfect. And if it ends here, the people around me are trying to do their best. And in fact, I got pulled out of it. But it didn't look like I was going to get pulled out of it.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, in Cooneyan terms, to have a revolution. And that revolution would be to practice medicine in a way that will be epidemiologically most effective, not most profitable for the people who are providing you with what's called knowledge.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're everywhere. And it's back to Kuhn that groups of experts share unspoken assumptions. And in order to be included in that group of experts, you have to share those unspoken assumptions. And what I'm hoping to do with my book, Sickening and Being here having this wonderful conversation with you is to create an alternative to this normal that People can pursue and Practice better medicine and also prevent burnout. I mean, about half the doctors complain that they're burned out and they've had it. And I think that this is a subject. I don't have data on this. This is just my opinion. But I think that a lot of that burnout is so-called moral injury from practicing in a way that the docs know isn't working.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Harmful for your health, and I think you should stop it. So, my colleague approached me when she saw the chart and said, wait a minute, that's my patient. Maybe your friend, but it's my patient. And I went to a conference from my alma mater medical school. And they said that healthy people should be given hormone replacement. And I said there's got to be drug companies involved in this. And she said, no, no, no. It was at my university. It was not a drug company thing. We didn't go to a Caribbean island. I said, do you have the syllabus? She said, yeah. And she went and got the syllabus. And sure enough, it was sponsored by a drug company.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you have to conform. You can't become a doctor without conforming. I just made it through. But there aren't many, and it's hard work. But you have to conform. And even with my colleagues in my own practice, I couldn't convince them that some of the beliefs they had about how best to practice weren't accurate. There's one scene, a younger physician had prescribed hormone replacement therapy. This was back in 2000, 2001, had prescribed hormone replacement therapy for one of my patients who happened to be a really good personal friend. And I saw that patient covering for my colleague at one point. And I saw that her hormone replacement therapy had been renewed. And I said, are you having a hot flashes or any problem? No, no, no, no. But Dr. So-and-so said it's better for my health. And I said, no, it's not. The research is showing that it's not. It's harmful.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a very hard question because the sociologic norms are to be affected and to trust the sources of information that are largely controlled by the drug industry. And that's why I wrote sickening is to try and help those people in the medical profession to understand that what's going on right now looks normal. But it's not. The health of Americans is going downhill. Our society is getting ruined by the money that's getting pulled out of other social beneficial uses to pay for health care that is not helping us.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say, should that person who has only good motives go into medicine? They have an inclination to go into medicine and they've asked me what I think about that given what I know about the undermining of American health care at this point. And my answer is if you got the calling, you should do it. Should do it because nobody's going to do it better than you. And if you don't have the calling, And you're in it for the money You're not going to be proud of yourself.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would state it quite differently. It's sort of an opt out rather than an opt-in. Big pharma will do that and you need to opt out of it.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they probably, there are not many weirdos like me who invest their life in figuring out what's behind the data. They're trying to get through the day and do the right thing for their patient. They're tortured by that decision”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At all, yeah. But you've been asking at different points in this conversation, why are doctors so complacent about the tremendous amount of money we're spending? Why do they accept knowledge from different sources that may not pan out when they really know the truth? And the answer is that they're trying to do their best for their patients. And there's this, it's the same kind of torture to figure out what the hell is going on with the data. And that's a sort of future project and maybe people will read my book and maybe they'll get a little more excited about it or become more legitimate in practice. I would feel like my life was worthwhile if that happened. But at the same time, they've got to do something with the patient in front of them. They've got to make a decision.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think that's true. And at the same time, I think it's equally true that all physicians need to have a sense of responsibility about how the common resources are allocated to serve the whole population's interest best. That's attention that you have as a physician. Let's take the extreme example. Let's say you had a patient in front of you. who, if you gave a one-10 billion dollar pill to, you would save their life. I would just be tortured by that as a physician because I know that $10 billion spent properly in an epidemiologically guided way is going to save a whole lot more lives.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not sure how you'd best do that most effectively and efficiently, but that's what you need to do. And it may be that there's a marital problem and there's something going on and one of the spouses can't find satisfaction in the life they have to live within their relationship. Maybe there's a past history of trauma or abuse that somebody is projecting onto their current situation. Maybe the socioeconomic circumstances where they can't find a job that gives them self-respect and enough money to live. An infinite range of things, but let's figure out, make a diagnosis first. The diagnosis isn't that the person feels sadder than they feel than they want to feel. The diagnosis is why does the person feel sadder than they want to feel?”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Big first step, yeah. Family docs are pretty good at that. That's kind of the arena that caused me to go into family medicine, the subject of experience of the patient. Okay, so you're a person who is not getting the enjoyment out of their life that they feel they ought to be getting. Now let's figure out why and whether that means sometime with a social worker, sometime with a psychiatrist, sometime with a psychiatric nurse.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Acknowledge that you're suffering and deal with healthcare providers who acknowledge that you're suffering. So let's take that first step.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's call it what it is instead of saying, oh, you're in this vast basket of people who are depressed, so we'll give you an antidepressant, even though the evidence shows that people who are suffering from your level of depression don't get better.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What the number needed to treat is, I think it's around four, one out of four people have significant improvement. But the people without major depression... Don't get better, and the vast majority of these drugs are used for people without major depression. So what's happened is that the feelings of life satisfaction, of happiness and not sadness have been medicalized, the normal range of feelings have been medicalized. And that's not to say that they shouldn't be attended to, but the evidence shows that attending to them by giving somebody a medicine doesn't help except that they feel like somebody cares about them and believes that they're suffering. But there are problems in living that give rise to much of this symptomatology of less than major depression. And let's call it what it is and figure out a way to help people, individual therapy, group therapy, maybe lifestyle modification would work. We've got to try that.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Major depression is a serious problem. People can't function normally. They have a hard time getting out, performing their normal social roles. But what's happened is that the publicity, I mean, prozac nation was a good example of making the argument that why should people settle for normal happiness when they can have better than normal happiness? And if you're not having normal happiness, you should take a drug. Well, that concept that serotonin metabolism is the root cause of depression is really a destructive one. We have drugs that change serotonin metabolism, but we don't know if that's why antidepressants work on major depression. And they certainly don't work on everybody with major depression.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, a paper in the New England Journal by Eric Turner showed that the data, if you put all the data together from antidepressants, you find out that antidepressants are not effective for people who are depressed but don't have a major depression.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can't get the vote through Congress. Democrats and Republicans alike are taking money from Congress and somehow it just doesn't work out that these even small changes. I mean, the pared down part of the plan for increasing Medicare negotiation drug costs. Build back better, it's literally going to reduce the number of new drugs that are beneficial, uniquely beneficial, by about one new drug or two new drugs over 30 years. It will have virtually an indecipherable impact. And yet pharma is talking about the impact on innovation. And if you vote for this, if you let your congressman vote for this, you're going to severely slow down drug innovation and that's going to affect the quality of your life.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they do. And more than 80% of people think that drugs cost too much and the drug industry is too interested in profits.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, and why do we do that? Well, the answer is perfectly obvious that the way to transfer money from working Americans to investors is through the biomedical mind. Not through the social health model. And that's the problem. I'd like to discuss this because the market isn't going to get us to a reasonable allocation. All the other wealthy countries that are so much healthier than we are and spending so much less than we are have some form of government intervention in the quality of the health data that's available, in the budgeting of health and social factors. And we don't. We're kind of the wild west and we let the market determine those allocations. And it's an awful failure. It's a horrendous failure.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The approach wouldn't be to treat individual sick fish. It would be to fix your fish tank to get the bacteria out of it and whatever bad stuff is in there and make your fish tank healthier. Well, we invest far less than the other wealthy countries do. We're flipped. We have the mirror image in the spending on social determinants of health and medical determinants of health. We have exactly the wrong order. And not only does that choke off social determinants of health, which are very important, but actually just the ratio, even if you were spending, if we raise the social spending and raise our medical spending in proportion, it's the ratio of social spending to medical spending that's the problem.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The impediments to people of lower socioeconomic status being able to make those changes. We've got to understand that personal responsibility counts for some of this, but also social circumstances accounts for some of it. And back to your fishbowl analogy, if you're swimming in a fishbowl, if you live in a fish tank that's not being properly maintained.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, this is a very simple question to answer. Exercise for at least a half hour, at least five times a week. Number one. Number two, don't smoke. Number three, maintain a reasonably healthy body weight. Some people argue that being lower than a BMI at 25 is healthy. I think that may be true, but I think getting above 30 is unhealthy. And that ought to be. Now, that's largely impacted by socioeconomic status. And we don't want to blame the victims here. So we've got to understand that when we talk about all of these things, not cigarettes, but exercise and a good diet and maintaining a healthy body weight. We have to include in doing those things”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but I want to qualify that and say it's not all big pharma's fault. They're not responsible for all the problems in our healthcare system. They're not responsible for the administrative costs, for example. But they are the largest component of the rising healthcare costs. And it has to do with this knowledge issue. controlling the knowledge that doctors have. Makes it so that doctors can live with this situation, believing that it's optimal when it's”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. We are now spending 7% more of our GDP, 17.7% versus 10.7% on healthcare, 7%. And I think GDP is the fairest way to compare healthcare spending per person in dollars. We're spending even the difference is even greater, but other costs vary with GDP. So let's stick with the conservative way to do it.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Am too, but not on camera. No, but seriously, the problem is pretty simple, that we're investing 96% of our clinical funding of clinical research in drugs and devices. And 80% of our health is determined by how we live our lives. And this is ridiculous, where the United States is going further and further behind the other wealthy countries in terms of our health. We ranked 38th in healthy life expectancy in 2000, and now we're spending a trillion and a half dollars extra, and we rank 68th. We've gone down”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I believe strongly that the reason why we've gotten in this crazy position. Is because the knowledge that we're producing is about new drugs and devices. And it's not about improving population health. In this problem, the NIH is the perfect institution to play a role in rebalancing our research agenda.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“More in science that can lead to commercial development rather than, as you said at the beginning of the podcast, there's no big fitness and lifestyle industry that can counter pharma. So I think at the NIH level, that countering can be done. And the diabetes prevention program study that we talked about before where lifestyle was part of a randomized trial and was shown to be more effective than metformin at preventing the development of diabetes. Absolute proof positive that investing in that kind of science can produce good results. So I think that we're aimed at drug development and what we ought to be aimed at is an epidemiological approach to improving the health of all Americans. We rank 68th in the world in healthy life expectancy. Despite spending an extra trillion and a half dollars a year”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's our model. Now, 96% of the research that's done in clinical trials in the United States is about drugs and devices. And only a fraction of the 4% that's left over is about preventive medicine and how to make Americans healthier. I think Again, from the satellite view, the NIH is investing”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So my knowledge of the NIH is not as granular as my knowledge of pharma. That said, in broad brushstrokes, the NIH is doing the infrastructure work for all drug development. I think they've participated in 100% of the drugs that have been approved by the FDA over the past 10 years or so. They've done infrastructure work. And what they do is not work on particular drugs, but they develop work on drug targets, on targets in the human body that can be affected by drugs and might be beneficial to turn on or off. And then the drug companies, when they find a target that is mutable and potentially beneficial, then the drug companies can take the research and choose to invest in the development of the drugs, specific drugs.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I agree. And I have another nomination for a band. We're in this crazy situation where Medicare is not allowed to negotiate the price of drugs with the drug companies. So the drug companies get a patent on a new drug. Unlike every other developed country, they can charge whatever they want. So they have a monopoly on a utility because no one else can make the drug. Charge whatever they want, and Medicare has to pay for it. And you say, how did we get in this crazy situation? So, how we got here is that in 2003, when Medicare Part D was passed, Billy Towson was head of the Ways and Means Committee in the House, played a key role in ushering this through with the non-negotiation clause of it. And after it was passed, Billy Towson did not finish out his term in Congress. He went to Pharma for a $2 million a year job”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know. Two separate questions. One is should the officials at the FDA come from pharma. And vice versa. One question. And the other question is should advisory committee members be allowed to have financial conflicts of interest? In my opinion, and people might say I'm biased, I think advisory committee people should not have conflicts of interest. I think their only interest ought to be the public interest. And that was true from my understanding of this situation. It's the afterward in my book. I spent some time studying it about Agilem. I think it's a slam dunk that there ought to be no conflicts of interest. Now, the head of CEDAR, Center for Drug Evaluation Research, thinks that that's going to give you a biased result because we don't have company influence. And that, I think, shows how How biased their thinking is.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But what I'm saying is. I'm not denying what he said is true. But the FDA, a high official in the FDA, is saying that we need to allow conflicts of interest in our advisory committee meetings. And that She wants to change the rules. So Albert Borla would still be playing by the rules, but it just shows how one sided the thinking here is.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About this, people were just too emotional. The 10 people who voted against it and the no people who voted for it, it's all too emotional. So this gets back, this is a long answer to your short question. I think this is a wonderful window into the thinking of the FDA that financial conflicts of interest don't matter in a situation when I think it's obvious that they would matter.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it seems like it's a slam dunk and the FDA made a mistake and they should do whatever they do to protect their bureaucratic reputation. So the head of the Bureau of the FDA, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research that approves new drugs who had spent 16 years as an executive in the pharmaceutical industry, issued a statement and said, What we should do in this situation is to loosen the prohibition of financial ties of interest with the drug companies so we get less emotional responses. Said this, it's in print”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're not going to participate in this. And the argument against approval is that the surrogate endpoint, the reduction of amyloid, the progression of amyloid plaques, is known by the FDA not to be a valid clinical indicator. It doesn't correlate. 27 studies have shown it doesn't correlate with clinical progression, interrupting the amyloid plaques doesn't mean that your Alzheimer's doesn't get worse.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was an advisory committee convened to debate and determine how they felt about the approval of Agahelm, given those facts. And those facts aren't in dispute. They're in Biogen slides as well as FDA documents. The advisory committee voted 10 against approval and one abstain. So that's essentially universal, unanimous vote against approving Agahelm. Now, the advisory committees have been pretty much cleansed of financial conflicts of interest. So this advisory committee votes No, one abstention. And the FDA overrules the unanimous opinion of its advisory committee and approves the drug Three of the members of the advisory committee resign. They say we're not going to be part. If the FDA is not going to listen to a unanimous vote against approving this drug, which shows more harm than benefit, Undisputed.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One at a time. Okay, and this isn't even about Pfizer, but it's an answer to the question. So there's this drug Ajahilm that was approved by the FDA maybe six months ago. It's a drug to prevent the progression of low-grade Alzheimer's disease. The target for drug development for Alzheimer's disease has been the amyloid reducing the amyloid plaques in the brain which correlate with the progression of Alzheimer's. that its drug Agilem reduces amyloid plaques in the brain. They did two clinical trials to determine the clinical efficacy, and they found that neither trial showed a meaningful benefit. And in those two trials, 33% more people in the AgiHelm group developed symptomatic brain swelling and bleeding than people in the place. SIBO group.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, yes, and the damage to the kids in school and so we got a problem and it's not going away unfortunately. So when we get a problem like that, it's not just an interesting barroom conversation about whether the earth is flat. There are millions of lives involved.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. And if we're arguing about whether the flat earth is flat or not, as long as we're not navigating airplanes and doing other kinds of things, trying to get. Satellites to do transmission, it's not that important what we believe. But if we're arguing about how we approach the worst public health crisis, in, I don't know how long, I think we're getting worse than the Spanish flu now. I don't know what the total global deaths with Spanish flu were, but in the United States, we certainly have more deaths than we had from Spanish flu.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I respect him. And I think when he has somebody on who's a dyed-in-the-wool anti-faxer, the question is, how can you balance, if it needs balance, in real time? I'm not talking about afterwards. I'm talking in real time. Maybe you record, well, he does record it, obviously, but maybe when there's a statement made that is made as if it's fact-based. Maybe that statement should be checked by some folks who Imaginary folks who are trustworthy. And in real time, as that discussion is being played on the podcast, Show what independent experts say about that claim.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he was He was a gentleman, and we had it out. In fact, he put one clip. At one point, he said something that was a little bit wrong, and I corrected him. And he had the guy who Jamie. He had Jamie check it and was very forthright in saying, yeah, you know, John's got a right here. We got to modify this. In any of that Any event, you got him Well, I wasn't trying to get him.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you're an optimist. I want to work with you a little bit on this. Let's say a person like Joe Rogan, who, by the way, had me on his podcast and let me amazing.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there's an element of that in the arguments that are going on about vaccines. And they're on both sides, but I think the anti-Vax side puts out more units of information claiming to show that the vaccines don't work. And I guess in an ideal situation, there would be real-time fact-checking by independent people, not to censor it, but to just say that study was set up to do this and this is what the conclusions were, so the way it was stated is on one side of this argument.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but I do want to. Push back a little bit on what you're saying. I have anti-fax friends who I love. They're dear cherished friends. They'll send me stuff. And it'll take me an hour to go through what they sent To see if it is credible And usually it's not. It's not a random sample of the anti-vax argument. I'm not saying I can disprove the anti-vax argument. But I am saying that it's almost like we were talking about how medical science, clinical trials, the presentation of clinical trials to physicians could be improved. And the first thing we came up with is to have pre-publication transparency in the peer review process. So, bad information, biased information doesn't get out as if it's legitimate and you can't put it back, recapture it once it gets out”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We don't, it's a question of building the commons. Ideally, I don't know how to get there, so I'm not pretending to have a solution, but the commons of discourse about this particular issue, about vaccines, has been largely destroyed by the edges, by the drug companies and the advocates on the one side and the people who just criticize and think that even though the data are flawed, there's no way vaccines can be beneficial. And to have those people screaming at each other does nothing to improve the health of the 95% of the people in the middle who want to know what the rational way to go forward is and protect their families from COVID and live a good life and be able to participate in the economy. And that's the problem. I don't have a solution.”
2022-02-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #263 – John Abramson: Big Pharma · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source