Infectious Myth – The Vitamin Murders with James Fergusson – 03.22.16

In episode 94 David interviews James Fergusson, the author of the 2007 book, “The Vitamin Murders”. The book covers the authors own concerns about contamination in his own family’s food, and Jack Drummond, who designed the British food rationing system during World War II. Some people think the restricted calorie intake, especially sugar, made this the healthiest time for the average Brit. After WW II, however, Jack Drummond, his wife, and their daughter, were murdered brutally and bloodily in the south of France, while ostensibly on holiday. But were they on holiday or on a secret mission? James Fergusson’s website is: http://www.jamesfergusson.info

After the interview, David reports on a $100 million advertising campaign for Gilead’s expensive new Hepatitis C drug, Harvoni (http://www.statnews.com/2016/03/08/harvoni-hepatitisc-ads) and a recent podcast with a man who survived Hepatitis C drugs but, when they didn’t cure his cirrhosis, worked out a natural protocol that did allow his liver to recover, to the surprise of his doctor (http://www.howpositiveareyou.com/2016/02/05/hpay-107-alistair_mackinnon).

This Can’t Be Happening – 12.30.15

“This Can’t Be Happening!” Guest Bret Grote, attorney with the Abolition Law Project in Pennsylvania, talks about a federal court hearing in Scranton, PA, where he and another lawyer, Robert Boyle, argued on behalf of their client, prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, for an injunction ordering the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to stop withholding treatment for his active case of Hepatitis-C — a potentially fatal disease that has already damaged his liver and brought on a case of adult diabetes as well as a horrific and debilitating skin disease. A ruling on that injunction is expected in weeks. If it goes in Mumia’s favor and he treatment is ordered, it could have a wide impact, not just on the estimated 10,000 state prisoners known to have the disease, but also nationwide, where Hepatitis-C is epidemic in the nation’s prisons.

This Can’t Be Happening – 12.23.15

Host Dave Lindorff and his guest, Dr. Jess Guh, the newest member of the ThisCantBeHappening.net online news collective, talk about Mumia Abu-Jamal’s court battle in federal court in Scranton to force the state’s prison system to provide him with treatment for his active and potentially fatal case of Hepatitis C. Dr. Guh, a primary car physician from Seattle who has been investigating the shoddy standard of health care in the nation’s prisons, and who has gone over somd 100 pages of Mumia’s medical record, says that what Pennsylvania and many other states are doing to prisoners in their control is nothing short of malpractice and neglece on a massive scale.

PETER ERLINDER – The truth behind the high cost of hepatitis C

Last week’s commentary “Who gets hepatitis C drugs? Who pays?” (Aug. 10) by North Memorial Health Care CEO Kevin Croston and Medica vice president Robert Longendyke responded to a first-in-the-nation class-action lawsuit seeking the new U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “breakthrough” cure for life-threatening hepatitis C infections. Brought by 1,500 Minnesota Department of Corrections prisoners, the lawsuit was first …

Prescription Drug Spending Jumps to All Time High in 2014 – Brian Wu

According to a report from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics , Americans spent more money on drugs than they ever have before with spending jumping by 13% to $374 billion, driven by innovative but expensive new drugs designed to treat Hepatitis C. The new hepatitis C drugs accounted for more than $11 billion of the spending with the influx …