The Jordan Harbinger Show - 1053: Generic Drugs | Skeptical Sunday

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

Are generic drugs as good as their name-brand counterparts? On Skeptical Sunday, Dave Farina compares their development, prices, and efficacy. Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by Is This Wi-Fi Organic?: A Guide to Spotting Misleading Science Online author and host of the Professor Dave Debates podcast, Dave Farina! On This Week's Skeptical Sunday: Generic drugs contain the same active ingredients as brand-name drugs, but are typically much cheaper due to not having to absorb research and development costs. Drug patents typically last around 20 years, giving companies a period of market exclusivity to recoup their investment before generics can be produced. While the active ingredients are identical, there can be minor differences in inactive ingredients (excipients) between brand-name and generic drugs that may slightly affect bioavailability. Regulatory bodies like the FDA play a crucial role in ensuring drug safety and efficacy, though rare oversights can still occur. Consumers can make informed decisions about medications by understanding the similarities between brand-name and generic drugs, consulting with healthcare providers, and staying aware of drug safety information from reliable sources. This knowledge empowers individuals to potentially save money on prescriptions while still receiving effective treatment. Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [e-mail] and let him know! Connect with Dave Farina on YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, and check out the Professor Dave Debates podcast here or wherever you enjoy listening to fine podcasts. Dave’s book, Is... See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Sceptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday, co-host Dave Farina. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker, and during the week, we have long-form interviews and conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, Sundays, though, we do skeptical Sunday. We're a rotating guest co-host and I. We break down a topic that you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic.

Topics such as circumcision, sovereign citizens, diet supplements, the lottery, reiki healing, self-help cults, diet pills, internet porn, and more. And if you're new to the show, or you want to tell your friends about the show, and I appreciate it when you do that, I have our episode starter packs. I think those are a great place to begin. These are collections of our favorite episodes organized by topic, and I'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Topics like negotiation and communication, abnormal psychology, technology, futurism, crime, and cults, and more. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, we're going to be talking about drugs and not necessarily

the fun kind of drugs you might immediately think of when you hear that word. I know I'm going to get canceled for saying that, but let's admit it. People do drugs. My middle school teacher asked the whole class why people do drugs. Nobody had an answer, and his answer was because they're fun. And I think back on that, I think, wow, the only guy who is admitting it. But I digress. Today, we're talking about the kind of drugs that you get at the pharmacy. Prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, the kind of drugs you take when you're sick, you don't feel well for one reason or another. These drugs are manufactured and distributed by the pharmaceutical industry. That shouldn't surprise anybody, but it's been in the spotlight, not sure if you've been paying

attention. There are a whole host, or there is a whole host, of regulations that pertain to this marketplace. Today, we're going to talk about brand name drugs versus generic drugs. Are the brand names better? Why do generic drugs exist at all? What's the difference, if any, how do drug patents work? Why do we even need those? And also, can drugs expire like food does? And how does that even work? To talk us all through this is Dave Farina of the YouTube channel, Professor Dave explains. Dave, thanks again. Welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me again. Look, I'm excited to do drugs with you today. So it sounds like this topic is quite up your alley, given your background in chemistry, which is kind of a good angle to take this from, I would imagine. Yeah, I mean,

I studied chemistry, in particular synthetic organic chemistry. So essentially, that is how to make molecules. And that's a very big part of drug development. It's the process of making molecules that will have some medicinal value. So I would not characterize myself as an expert. I'm not a pharmaceutical chemist, but chemistry is my primary area of knowledge. And as a science communicator, I enjoy explaining aspects of this topic for lay people who tend to be a little bit in the dark as to how this process works or honestly even what drugs are in the first place. Yeah. And I think that in this case, you not being a pharmaceutical chemist or representative of the pharmaceutical industry in any way at all,

actually plays to your favor here, our favor, as there are lots of people who will recoil simply at the mention of this industry and would probably not trust anything that comes out of your mouth if you worked with or for them. So it will be quite clear that you have absolutely no affiliation with them at all. I'm a self-employed YouTuber who explains chemistry for a living.

That's what I do. So, you know, I have no affiliation with any industry, organization, institution, anything like that. And honestly, I have no problem bluntly pointing out ethical transgressions wherever I see them. But the obsession that society seems to have here with the pharma industry, I find that most of the issues people have with this industry, honestly, are born out of complete ignorance toward this area of science. Right. Look, I'm sure there's some legit gripes here and there, but a lot of it is big pharma is trying to kill us and they're

hiding the cancer cure, which we can, that might even be a different show. All right, let's talk about pharmaceutical drugs. I actually assumed most people knew a little bit or even a lot about this topic, but I don't know why I did that. But after doing a bit of an informal poll, I realized most people have absolutely no clue. So here we are on Skeptical Sunday, educating the masses here. In a previous episode, and I can't remember if it was one on science denial or Ierveda or something like that, we defined, we actually did define drugs, and you're going to have to refresh my memory, but it was any substance that when introduced to the body has a non-nutritional physiological effect. Am I close?

Yes. No, that's exactly right. nutritional. So we're saying not food. So food does not count as drugs. But anything else that when ingested or injected or applied topically or whatever, however you're taking the drug, changes some aspect about the way your body works. Okay. So with pharmaceutical drugs, we have industries that develop specific drugs for specific purposes. And let's talk first about expiration dates. There's always an expiration date on a bottle of whatever pill. What is that all about. I didn't, do drugs go bad? Yeah, I mean, they can. So drugs are molecules. And so like any other molecules, they're subject to the rules of the chemical world so they can react. So over time,

some fraction of the molecules will decompose. Maybe they'll oxidize, right? Something, there'll be some chemical change that could turn them into something else. So oxidize is in, the air gets in there because the seal's broken and the oxygen reacts with whatever and it just turns into a bunch of crap. Or not even totally broken, just, you know, an oxygen molecules was extremely small, so, you know, over time, even sealed food, I mean, unless it's vacuum sealed, but oxygen will get into places, yeah. Yeah, indeed it does, especially here on Earth, I guess. So what does it change into? Is it harmful? Because I'm always afraid to take old medication. You find it in your camping

night kid or whatever, and you're like, oh, I do have a slamming headache. Oh, wait, this is from 2009. Is it radioactive cyanide now? Well, no. week after the day, like, let's even say it's a couple weeks old. How bad are we talking about? Or is it just like, you know, unless it's mushy, I'm probably going to take it, frankly, if I have a bad enough headache. I mean, obviously it depends. 2009 versus a few weeks ago. I mean, look, it's very unlikely to be harmful. But maybe, I mean, you don't want to risk it. The most likely thing is just that they lose their efficacy, right? There's decomposition and that they don't do what they're supposed to do. So there's no reason to take them. But the point is, you know, if enough time elapses, it's just that you can't be

totally positive about what's in there. So it's just safer to not take it and get a fresh batch. How rigidly do we respect that? Because we did an episode on food expiration dates, and it turns out that a lot of stuff is not really that bad when it's old. Other stuff is really bad, like it gets moldy and can make you really sick. But a lot of food, you're kind of fine within a week or even longer, depending on the food. How rigid is it with medication? Is it sort of day one after dump it in the trash? Or is it, it's tough for us to make a recommendation here without incurring liability. So I guess we have to tread lightly, but what do you think? Yeah, exactly. And I think that's the point of the dates in general. I mean, the day after the

expiration date, there almost certainly is no risk, right? It's an extremely low risk. They're conservative dates, right? These companies, it's a safeguard. They want to remove liability, right? You just here's a very conservative day after this date. Maybe don't take it. The risk is infinitesimal. So, I mean, look, if you really need that last pill from your heart medication and you can't, you're not going to make it to the pharmacy for a few days, take the last. pill. You know, it's not going to be that bad. But the longer you wait past the expiration date, certainly, you know, if we're talking about several more years or, or a decade or however long it is, it's going to go from 99.9.9% pure to 99.5% and then down to 99%. And, you know,

we're still talking about a low risk. But the longer you wait, the longer the risk. And the point is, why would you risk it? Right. Just throw them away. Sure. And this is also if the medicine has been stored properly, right? If it's been floating in your pool and it's still not expired, might not want to take it. A pool would be a, yeah, very reactive environment. Yeah, but I have to say that because we're going to get emails that are like, you don't know how that's been stored. What if it's been in a humid environment? And it's like, okay, fine, but generally speaking. In your medicine cabinet, whatever, yeah, just normal situations. Okay, so it sounds like we shouldn't necessarily be overly alarmed about it, but it does make sense in terms of chemistry. I mean, chemistry, it's funny. You

think of chemistry happening when you want it to, but it's happening all the time. Sure. So you don't want something to happen that's unexpected, even if the risk is low. Yeah, it's not just happening in a lab. Chemistry is happening all around us. That's pretty much it. Just minimize risk whenever possible. And I think that's kind of a relief. I get, look, we should minimize risk, but sometimes you're taking a fever reducer at 3 o'clock in the freaking morning, and what you got is what you got, even if it's like two months out of date. Yeah. Two months out of date, it's going to be fine. But maybe next time you're at CVS, just get another bottle. Right. Like, I am not Googling 24-hour pharmacy. and throwing out a bottle of Tylenol when I can barely function.

Yeah, get it in three days, yeah. Exactly. So now let's talk about brand name drugs versus generic drugs. Why would a drug both have a brand name and why would a generic drug come to exist? What's the difference between these things? Yeah, there's a lot to talk about in terms of names. So, okay, drugs are molecules and molecules have chemical names, all any kind of molecule that a chemist would ever talk about. So these are designated by the IUPAC.

or the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and they have their own system of nomenclature such that chemists can unambiguously name any molecule based on its structure. So under this system from the IUPAC, you could get a name for a molecule like two acetoxybenzoic acid. So this name rigorously describes the structure of the molecule, so any chemist could look at the name and they're going to know exactly what the structure is. That's the point of the chemical name. So any drug is a molecule, so it's going to have a chemical name, and two acotoxy benzoic acid acid is a drug, but it's better known by its generic name aspirin. So generic names are assigned by the U.S. adopted name counsel, specifically for the

purpose of referring to common drugs without having to use these complicated chemical names. So you said international union of pure and applied chemistry, I take it to mean that two acetozytoxy benzoic acid. Two acetoxy benzoic acid. To Acetoxy, Benzoic acid, is that also called that in France and China? Or do they just have a different thing going on because they can't say that? Like I can't. Well, so the cool thing for us English speakers is that English is pretty much the international language of chemistry.

So other languages sometimes have terminology in their own language, but pretty much we're talking about the name of the molecule. It's going to be, that's the name. That is convenient. Because I can imagine if it were reversed, and we have. had to do this in Chinese, it would not work. Yeah. Or Japanese.

Imagine extending a unique character for each functional group on a molecule. It's just, it gets really complicated pretty fast. It'd be a pure nightmare. I guess, yeah, lucky us got there first. Yeah. If you want to do chemistry in the world, you have to learn English and English terminology. That's it. Yeah.

All right. First to home base. So obviously, that makes sense that anything the public might buy or consume should have a generic name that they can remember instead of. having to learn that language of chemistry, regardless of whether it's in English. I mean, I tried to pronounce it, and I read it in my head, and I still screwed it up three times. So I'd never want to hit CVS asking for two acotoxy-benzoic acid, because I barely made it through the finish line on that attempt. So how about brand names? Is that just marketing?

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, so brand names or trade names means the same thing. These come into play when a company wants to sell a drug. So aspirin is not a brand name, but any company can sell aspirin, and they can make up any name they want for it, and they can trademark that name as a brand. So, for example, emperin is a brand name for a drug that is aspirin. Okay, so emperin is aspirin. There's no difference. It's the same thing, but one is a blue label and Cosmore. Yeah, pretty much.

So fundamentally, there is no difference. Emperin is aspirin, but the brand name is trademarked, so the company that sells empren can advertise their product however they want in order to try to create a bias in the market place favoring their brand over others. So anybody can make aspirin and sell it, but nobody else can call it emparin. And if they have a very successful marketing campaign, they may get a bigger share of the aspirin market. Okay, that makes sense. Because I know what Tylenol is, it's headache medicine, but I couldn't tell you if it's, I think it's a Cidometaphon or something, but I'm just going off of memory. And I guarantee you that most people don't necessarily know that, unless they've had to

look it up for some reason. For sure. Okay. So what we're saying is that there can be lots of brand names that all refer to exactly the same drug from the sound of it. Yes, that's right. So every drug has exactly one chemical name and exactly one generic name, but it can have any number of brand names depending on who decides to make a brand out of that drug. What are some other examples? I think if we cycle through a few of these, it starts to make even more sense. Yeah, so everyone knows about ibuprofen. So this is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, it's just a classic pain reliever. So ibuprofen, that doesn't sound like a chemical name.

It sounds like an aspirin. It sounds like a generic name for something. Yes, that's right. Ibuprofen is the generic name for the drug with the chemical name, R.S.2-4-2-metropylphenol propanoic acid. Okay, well, that's a mouthful to say the least, and I could see why you need to shorten that, just to function at all. Yeah, everybody, even chemists want to shorten that, right?

I mean, we need that chemical nomenclature because you need to be able to look at that name and then be able to draw the molecule exactly the way it is. But we don't want to say that every time. It's got a generic name, ibuprofen. Again, anyone can sell ibuprofen and they can call it whatever they want. So there are brand names like Advil or Motrin. I would imagine in chemistry classes or pharma classes, you've got a bucket of flashcards that say ibuprofen and you have to name the molecule and then draw it or something like that.

Maybe in pharmacology, yeah, I never studied pharmacology in university, but yeah, actually, probably. That sounds so, God, I can't even imagine. It's like organic chemistry, just memorized, wrote memorization of the wazoo. Okay, so Advil and Motrin are the same as each other in terms of what the chemical, the chemical that's inside. And they're also the same as anything labeled ibuprofen. Essentially, yes. So the active ingredient is identical, for sure, it's ibuprofen. Ibuprofen is ibuprofen, end of story. So sometimes it's just called ibuprofen. There's just a bottle and it says ibuprofen. And sometimes it has a brand name for the purpose of marketing. So you can see commercials or print ads for Advil. And these convince you maybe of the superiority of the product. And so then you could be more likely to buy Advil over generic ibuprofen. You think there's something implanted in you where you think, all right, this is the best one. This is the better one. So, you know, the ad leaves an impression. The packaging is flashier. There's a nice low. logo, all this kind of stuff. It seems like it should be better than the generic bottle at CVS or wherever you're shopping. So a lot more people buy it and then the company benefits from the

investment. Wow. I guess that just sort of speaks to the power of advertising, if nothing else. And I guess we could say the same thing for almost every drug on the market then? Yeah, I mean, you mentioned Tylenol earlier. That's a brand name, right? Tylenol is a brand name and the generic is called acetaminopin. So again, if you go to CVS, you're going to see the generic bottles of acetaminopin. And that's what's in Tylenol. So some people have brand loyalty to Tylenol for one reason or another, but it is acetaminophon, which is the same acetaminophen that you get in a bottle, just marked acetaminophen. That's the molecule.

That's what it is. Do they ever add other ingredients to differentiate themselves? Like, do they throw more caffeine in there? So they're like, this is the acetaminopin that gives you a kick in the ass so you can crush your day or whatever. Or do they like flavor it orange? Because, you know, you've had stuff for kids. It's like orange flavored, chewable headache stuff. That can't just be the same pill that I would get with an orange layer on it. I mean, maybe it is. I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, if you add another drug in there, now you've got a different product and you would have to call it something else. But in terms of these other things, I mean, you can make alterations to certain details that don't change its therapeutic effect. So pill size or consistency or, you know, you can change the appearance. A lot of times you'll see that the appearance of the pill has changed in a subtle way. So you can alter the color. You can modify the markings or the grooves or the, you know, designs on the pill. Pretty much you have to, though, especially if you're mimicking a brand name drug, you're not going to be allowed to use that logo or any of the trademarked items. And then also, you know, when you remove the familiarity of some of these things, there can be an impact on sales. It reminds me of, did you have Flintstones vitamins when you were a kid or am I just ancient? No, I've had them, yeah. I certainly know of them, yeah. So I don't know if they even still exist, but they're like these chewable, for people that don't know, like these chewable rock hard, colored, sour vitamins. Yeah, a little multivitamins. Yeah, you piss them out immediately or whatever.

And they're etched or pressed like Flintstone's characters. And they're probably marked up 100 plus percent because they're fun. Sure. Kids like them. Yeah, kids like them. More like they eat them. So the end of the end there. Of course, kids today have no idea who the Flintstones are.

Yeah, no, I think I'm pretty much pissing into the wind trying to communicate this to anybody under 40. We still did. It was even old in our time because that's Hannah-Barbera era. That's like, you know, 20, 30 years before our time even. I guarantee you there's a. 60-year-old that had those as a kid and we're also, I don't know how old you are. How old are you? I'm turning 40 in a couple weeks. Yeah, so we're probably the tail end of that train. Yeah. All right. So why would anyone sell a drug by the generic name? Wouldn't it be easier to just

use a brand name and try to compete with the marketing? Yeah, so, I mean, the main reason is that there's a period of time after a company develops a drug. So somebody is going to develop this drug, this particular molecule, and then there's a period of exclusivity there. Nobody else can sell a drug at all. Okay, because of patents. Yeah, so this is part of the way the industry works. If a company develops a drug, they can patent the drug, and then obviously it's going to have a name, but they're going to give it a catchy brand name. And so then they will have market exclusivity on that drug for a certain period. Usually the way it works is it's around 20 years after the patent is filed. But then, however,

that doesn't mean it's on the market yet, right? It actually takes time for the drug then to be developed and hit the market. So in reality, it's only, it's about a decade of exclusive sales. And is that, what do you think? Is that ethical? Is that necessary? Yes, no, it certainly is necessary. If that were not the case, nobody would make drugs. Just nobody would do it. It's way too costly. It's the most incredible expenditure imaginable. We're talking about a couple billion dollars that are going into research and development in order to produce one viable drug that has value in the marketplace. So there has to be a period of exclusivity for that company to recuperate their investment or it just would not be profitable to make drugs. Nobody would make drugs. Nobody would make drugs. because somebody would develop a drug and then somebody would snatch, you know, the plans could leak and they go, all right, we're going to beat this company to the punch after they've done all the R&D. And the patent system has to be in place or there will be no drug development anywhere. You know what this reminds me? You ever see that Michael Moore flick where he sends those people to Cuba to get health care?

And it's like five cents for the drug that she needs and she pays a lot of money each month for it. And he's got a lot of valid points in that documentary, right? but it's also Michael Moore. So what he doesn't tell you is Cuba took a drug that the U.S. developed and took billions of dollars in years to make. And they just went, oh, yeah, we kind of need that. And then they made a hacked version of it and sell it for a nickel to people that's highly subsidized. And they sort of omit that from that documentary because it's not convenient to admit that, like, somebody has to spend the $10 billion or whatever dollars to get the drug in the first place. Yes.

And create it and market it and make sure it's safe. Contrary to popular belief, the profit margins on pharmaceutical drugs are appropriate. with very few exceptions, possibly a rare exception, but in general, the prices are appropriate. So after, and we're going to get emails about that, but I'm ready for it, I suppose. Look, we respect your opinion, Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. All right, we need to take a little break. In the meantime, here are some possibly, but probably not FDA-approved products and services that support this show.

We'll be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers does keep the lights on around here. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support. the show are on one page, Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for the sponsors using the AI chatbot on the website as well. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. So they have their period of exclusivity with the patent, and then what happens? Free-for-all? Yeah, pretty much. So the period of exclusivity expires,

and then anybody can sell the drug. So, but they cannot use the trademarked brand name of the original company. And so what happens is that company is hoping that they've established this brand, right? And they had been dominating the marketplace because it was the only option. So they're hoping to continue to dominate the marketplace because there's now recognizability that brand name associated with that drug. But other companies can make the drug and they can sell it as the generic form for whatever price they can set whatever price they want. If it's a really popular drug, like a headache medicine, like an ibuprofen or an aspirin, it seems like then other companies make the same thing and try their hand at branding it really strongly too, right?

We say Advil, Motrin, Tylenol, there's a million of those. Yes, yeah, definitely for such common drugs, that is the case. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Okay, once again, the drug is identical. They just can't use the brand name. So if they've come out with, and it's funny, because I can only think of, like, terrible drugs that have killed a crap load of people, like Viox. So these are terrible examples because nobody's going to want that brand name ever. But let's just say generic. Right. So somebody goes, oh, yeah, we want to copy that, but we can't call it Vioxx. We're just going to call it whatever that either the shorthand name is or they make up another

name like Ox Vy and it's like that's the new version of that. You could. Yeah. Most just go with the generic just because, so like the point here, there's an opportunity to save a lot of money, right? Because they don't have to do any research and development. The first company did all of the research and development. So if you're going to make the generic for a drug that's already been approved for the market,

first of all, you don't have to spend money on clinical trials. This was already researched, tested, approved by the FDA, so you just make the drug, and then you sell it under the generic name. So for this reason, they can sell it much, much cheaper. So just right off the bat, they don't have to invest in all the stuff so they can sell it cheaper because they haven't invested all that money. Second, what happens a lot of the time is that another pharmaceutical company will figure out how to innovate the synthetic pathway. So there's a synthetic pathway to the drug. And if somebody figures out a trick and they can make it in fewer steps or they can cut it. out a really expensive reagent or they can just do it in a better, faster, cheaper way, or however,

they just do it a better way. That cuts down costs even more, and so then they can sell it even cheaper. So however they're doing it, they're just trying to figure out how to make it for less money than the first company. And then whenever you get there, you're like, okay, I have my drug. It's the same drug. All you have to do is you have to show your data. I mean, you do have to prove this to the FDA. You have to show all your data confirming that everything is chemically equivalent to what's already on the market. And if it's chemically equivalent, you have to, you have to show equivalent, then all the existing specifications are met. It's the same thing, so you're ready to sell. Right. So it's not like anyone can just put anything in a bottle and label it as the generic. There's a

hoop to jump through, and you have to say, this is not just a cola that's like Coca-Cola. We took 100% of the ingredients, and they're in here, except the label is white now, and it's called Cola, the end. It's very stringent, right? There are regulatory bodies to ensure that what other people are making is just as safe and just as effective as the drug that went through all the rigorous testing. Okay, but at any rate, the fact remains once the patent expires, the first companies, I mean, I don't want to say screwed because hopefully they made a bunch of money in the past to made up their investment at least over the time, but is that sort of it? They just don't have any way to extend anything? To an extent. So, I mean, first of all, just as much as we need patents

to be there, we also need them to eventually expire. We want to change to an open market. marketplace because we don't want monopolies, right? We don't want a company owning exclusive rights to a drug indefinitely. So once the patent expires, they enter a competitive marketplace. And so this is the good part about capitalism, right? This is where it's a competitive marketplace, so you're going to get a fair market price according to the rules of economics. If you have a bunch of companies making a product, the price points are going to equilibrate at the ideal price that is going to drive the most sales while still making a profit for the company. So it's going to settle on something that it's going to be affordable, basically.

And there's no way around that limitation. Are there a little, like, shady loopholes where they're like, ah, we twisted this upside down, and now it's the carbon molecules on, I don't know anything about chemistry, but like the carbon molecules on the other side now. So there are kind of little tricky ways that the company, they can try to extend the period of exclusivity. So you have to change something about the drug. You can reformulate the drug in some way.

And sometimes it's a really trivial way. That's the way that it's like maybe a little bit shady. You just make it a little bit different. Or like, so for example, sometimes you can have a drug that's a racomate. It's in a racemic form, which means it's two mirror images. It's the same molecule structurally, but you have the two mirror images of it. So that's the racemic form. But then they're like, no way. Actually, we figured out that the inantio-pure version, this one anantiumer, the R, not the S, you know, one of the two pairs, is better. So we're going to make just this one, and now we're going to sell it like this. they'll substantiate it some way. We did this study. There's just slightly better bioavailability or, you know, whatever. Something is a little bit better. And then if they can convince them, all right, well, this is a little bit better. So we're going to get more time for exclusive sale. Okay. I didn't totally understand all that. And I think a lot of people didn't. But the point is that they can change things. Some of them are trivial and some of them are, hey, this is 1% more bioavailable. And if they buy that argument, they being what the FDA or the patent office or whatever buys that argument, then they say fine.

you can extend it, or is it that the other version that isn't that mirror image is now free, but the new slash better one is a new drug? Yeah, I guess I believe what it would be is that the patent would be extended to the inantiopure, whereas the Rasmate at some point then would become generic. What is anentio pure? What does that mean? So if you have the two mirror images, two inantiumers are mirror images of one another, so the inantiopure is just one of them alone without the other one.

Oh, okay. One mirror image. Got it, got it. We're talking about molecules like you would draw in paper for those of you who have no clue what we're talking about. At least that's what I think we're talking about, right? Yes, we're talking about drugs or molecules, right? Yeah. And so they have three-dimensional shape, and so a lot of times when you synthesize molecules,

if you're forming something that's chiral, meaning it has a mirror image. So structurally, all the bonds are the same, but they're just like your hands are mirror images of each other, right? But they have the same fingers in the same places, right? So let's say one of your hands is better. So in the pill, in the bottle, you don't want both hands. You want just the right hands or whatever. Left hands only, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so.

That's a pretty good way of explaining, because I'm envisioning those little wooden sticks with the balls on the end of it that you see on sitcoms or in high school where you're building a molecule. And, yeah, if you held one up to a mirror, you have the exact opposite thing on the other side. So structurally identical, the same atoms of the same elements bonded to each other in the same way, just their mirror images. Perfect.

Okay. So if they create new, versions of that by mirroring it, whatever. Is that abused from time to time? Because it seems like if there's decent money to be made by doing it, big companies are just chomping at the bit to try to do something like that. Yeah. It's a gray area. You could make the argument. I mean, it doesn't violate laws, so it's not really abuse, but it's just that sometimes these changes are so trivial that they don't really represent anything significant for the consumer. But then it may still prevent competition for a few more years. So even once that's elapsed,

If they still have the exclusivity on the inantiopeure, they might encourage doctors to tell patients, hey, listen, you want to tell the patients, this version is slightly better. Here's the data, right? Here's the data. It's 1% more, like a tiny little bit. So the patient should get this drug. This is the better one. And it's not wrong. Like, that's the thing. It's not incorrect. But it's just that it's a difference that it's nearly negligible or completely negligible. But the other version where the patent expired could still be made into generic. form? Yeah. Yeah, there are cases where there are alterations that extend the existing patent, but there are, I believe, instances where, as we were saying, it is considered a separate

product with a separate patent. Yeah. So we're talking about in AntioPure versus racemic, so the two mirror images or just the one version. So again, yeah, I think that you can have the patented in AntioPure and then you have the generic racimate, so both of the two mirror images. And that's whether or not there is any therapeutic difference. So that's kind of where it's. tricky, where it's like, does it really matter? This is my lawyer brain just making this point extra annoying, and I apologize to everybody for that. I'm going to stop now. But it's a good point, because this is an example of where, like, I push back so much

on where people claim unethical behavior in this industry because it's just completely fabricated. So when we get to a gray area like this, I'm happy to elucidate where it is honestly not, it's really, you wouldn't really call it unethical. It's just something where they're kind of playing with the rules. a little bit to try to extend exclusivity. They're just sort of, you know what I mean? Like, it's definitely not illegal. It's definitely not wrong or specifically unethical because it's not like it's a worse product. In fact, oftentimes it is a slightly better product, right? You get

better absorption or, you know, but it's just so negligible to retain the bias in the marketplace for almost no reason is pretty much what we're talking about. That definitely makes sense. It sounds like, and with the marketing stuff we were talking about before, it sounds like eventually we get to a situation like with ibuprofen or something where you see it at the store hundreds or even thousands of times throughout your life. We all sort of know it's the same thing as one of those brands Motrin or something. But maybe not everyone knows that. So they go for the brand they like or the one they recognize or they're freaking tired and they don't want to examine labels and read the back and they're just like, screw it. I got a headache. Give me this stuff. Yeah. And first

of all, not everybody knows that. Not everybody knows that these brand names are the same as the generic, I mean, I would go so far to say most people don't know that. But beyond that, look, brand loyalty, there's nothing wrong with brand loyalty if you like Motrin better than the generic. I mean, like, we all just, we're all receptive to advertising, right? You could have a favorite kind of laundry detergent or a favorite kind of butter, right? I get landa lakes. I don't know why I get, I don't even know if it tastes better. I just like the packaging, you know what I mean? You know, it could be a better product or we're just reflecting the marketing campaign that influenced us the most. This is not nefarious illegality, right? It's a normal aspect of capitalism.

Talking about molecules and butter, it reminds me of, do you remember, I don't know if you've had this, I remember learning margarine is only one molecule away from plastic and everyone was horrified. And then you realize that that's like something super toxic, like carbon monoxide being one molecule. It's like not even one molecule. It's like one to add them away from being carbon being carbon dioxide and it's like harmless, well, mostly harmless in small doses. And so you're like, well, wait, a whole molecule away from being plastic, that means it's literally just two different substances entirely. And you don't have to worry about that. Yeah, people don't know how, it's like people saying that, oh, these synthetic drugs are made from coal tar. Coal is carbon. It's

an aletrope of carbon and these drugs have carbon in, they're organic molecules, so they have carbon in them. So it's just like people try to act like atoms of a particular element. being in a molecule means it behaves like that molecule in its elemental form, like people flipping out about thimerosol because there's a mercury atom in it. So it must be like elemental mercury. It's just not how chemistry works. That's a whole different show right there with the whole thing. Like, you're injecting a fetus or whatever. Like I hear that all the time. Well, that's even yet a different thing. No, that's just nonsense. Yeah, that's a whole, I don't want to set you off in that one. All right. So there's also the placebo effect of some of these

medications. We've done shows about this. Episode 716 is all about placebo. Some people, this is an actual show guest said his mother had cancer and they, I don't know, the company changed the pill color from blue to orange or something and she was like, these don't work. The blue ones work. And he's like, no, it's literally the exact same thing. And she's like, the blue ones were keeping me healthy. And it really affected her negatively because he couldn't, just no matter what, he couldn't explain. or communicate effectively in a way that she would believe that the orange pills were the same as the blue pills. And there was a lot of placebo effect.

And then she had kind of the nocebo from not getting it anymore. And she started to feel worse. And it went downhill. It was really sad and extreme. Just paint them blue. Yeah. I was thinking like I told him during the show slash after the show and I almost feel bad. I was like, hey, why didn't you go to a compound pharmacy and just be like, make these blue?

And he's like, I didn't think of that. And then I felt really awful because it's like his mother had cancer. And I gave him this solution in two seconds. And he's like, I just didn't know that existed. Or food coloring or something. I don't know what. I mean, it's just crushing, right? But placebo is very powerful, I think, is my point.

Yeah, placebo and nocebo. I mean, with certain drugs, I mean, if we're talking about a cancer med, there's a psychological component. But mechanistically, there cannot be a difference. But if we're talking about palliative drugs, I mean, we're talking about pain relievers, that's not curing anything. It's a symptom reliever. So yeah, placebo is the thing that exists. So if you think that you're going to get a better effect with Advil over Motrin, you might a little bit because that's a placebo, right? So, okay. But, you know, this is just, again, we're talking about

pain relievers, palliative drugs. For something like a cancer med, that's doing something very specific in the body, there cannot be a mechanistic difference, only you, the placebo aspect, like how you feel that can change, but that's it. I think with her, it was like her psychology of I'm going to be cancer kind of went downhill because she, quote, unquote, wasn't getting the right medication anymore, even though she totally was. Yeah. And she started to just feel more tired and more pain and more lethargy.

And some of that's the disease progressing, but others, it just sort of took the wind out of her sales just because of the color of the drug. So going back to your previous example with laundry detergent and butter and certainly any kind of food, there can be differences. often we're choosing something that seems a little bit better to us. We get the picture here regarding generic names and brand names, but with the product itself, is there anything different whatsoever? Like with the food products, is there any sort of tiny insignificant, different, anything at all?

Yeah, so there can be tiny differences in the product overall. So when you take a pill, it's got the active ingredient in there. You've got aspirin or ibuprofen or acetaminophen or whatever it is, but it's not pure drug. It's not a big block of aspirin molecules. That makes sense. There's other things in the pill, and these are called excipients. So these are inactive substances.

I mean, first of all, they're the medium within which to place the active ingredient so that you can take a pill easily. But then there could be preservatives. There could be coloring agents. You mentioned earlier as coloring agents. There's other stuff in there that's not related to the therapeutic effect of the drug. I always found it highly convenient that everything we needed to take in pill form was a white powder at the end of the day. I was like, wow, that's really, there must be, I must be missing

something where everything I need to take is basically the same color and consistency. It's always magnesium sulfate or whatever it is, and then that your drug is packed in there. Yeah, I remember there was those things that are not the drug, but in the pill, and I remember everyone's like, binders, watch out for binders, don't take too many binders or whatever. I don't know what that means. Yeah, I think binder is probably what sticks it all together in a pill form, so it's not just a big mess. And this machine was invented like, you know, 100 years ago, whatever it is, where you get your amount of the drug and then the recipient, right, whatever you're packaging it in, you go clamp, and then you get your little tablet or whatever it is.

And that was a big deal, right? That was like, look at how easy this is. We have it all measured out, and we have this pill, and then here you go. You just put it in a little box, and then everybody can buy the drug at the pharmacy, and you take it home, and you take it whenever you want. It's just so easy to distribute now. So, yeah. Oh, and these can vary. these things can vary from product to product, I assume?

Yeah, so, I mean, not much, but there can be tiny differences that they might influence the bioavailability of the drug. We mentioned that earlier. So this is a word that describes how well your body absorbs the drug. So you ingest a pill, let's say you're taking a pill that goes into your stomach. Your digestive system has to break down the pill, and then the active ingredient has to enter your bloodstream. It has to be absorbed and then enter your bloodstream because then once it's in your

bloodstream, it can be distributed around your body and do the thing the drug is supposed to do. So there can be slight discrepancies in how well that process occurs depending on the product. It's not going to be like totally not able to absorb or anything like that, but typically pretty negligible, but they do exist, very small variations. Okay, so the way the pill is made can have some slight differences in how well the drug works, but the drug itself is identical, and that's the most important part from the sound of it. Yes. Yeah, that is clearly the most important part. So we can't say that every brand is 100% identical because it's not precisely true. There's all these other things that we're talking about, but it is true in the way that matters the most, and that's the drug itself.

The drug, whether if it's, you know, Tylenol or acetaminophen or whatever it is, the drug is identical in every way with very few exceptions. And when you say drug, you mean the active ingredient. That's right. The drug, the actual therapeutic, right? So there's the molecule that is acting as a drug and affecting your physiology as per the definition of the drug that we mentioned up top. Okay, I'm just clarifying. I'm probably being super annoying in this episode, but I'm just clarifying it because a lot of this stuff is kind of confusing for me. Sure.

Having no background in this, and I can't possibly be alone. Okay. It is confusing, yeah. Yeah. You know a lot about this stuff, and I obviously do not. Speaking of shills, here's a word from the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you once again for listening.

All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are all. the website at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals or use the AI chatbot right there on the website and ask for that promo code. Or if you're super lazy, email me Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com and I will freaking find it for you, you lazy sod. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. Is there any possibility that one company makes a mistake like they get a bad batch or something and are there any examples of something going wrong? You mentioned there can be exceptions. What would that look like? Yeah. So this is obviously, not common, but there can be mistakes. So there's a recent example, actually, that comes to mind.

So a company called Novartis made a drug called Valcurtan to treat high blood pressure. And then the period of exclusivity elapsed. And so, you know, as usual, other companies started making the generic, trying to cash in. But the problem is that a few other companies were using a slightly different methodology to make the drug, the actual therapeutic, that resulted in an unwanted side product called N-nitroso-dimethylamine. And so, So that made it into the product. Now this compound is, it's a pretty potent carcinogen. It's a very potent carcinogen.

So when I say that, like, you don't immediately want to think about toxic waste or glowing ooze or something like that. It's a normal molecule and we do ingest it. It's in bacon, it's in beer. It's in other things that we consume. We do come into contact with this molecule pretty regularly. But the thing is when we come into contact with it, it's very low doses. And in this drug, it was a much, much higher dose.

high for a product that is going to be on the market. So this was a very bad thing. That is scary. So these companies, obviously they did this by mistake, I assume, or what's going on here? Yeah, this is, I mean, it's who would, it's a mistake. It was a careless mistake. Admittedly, it's a foolish mistake. They missed this side product in their analysis. They made the drug, and then they characterized it, and they just, they didn't catch it. They didn't know it was in there, and then they went and submitted for approval without knowing that it was in there. Okay, but that should have been caught by who the FDA, I would assume, or something, right? It should have been caught by the respective regulatory body that had domain over that.

It should have, yeah. And it usually is. Stuff like this almost always is. I can't say in this example why it wasn't caught. I don't know why. But it was an oversight on their part on the regulatory body, and it was an oversight on the part of each of the handful of companies that made it this way. That is terrifying.

Was this linked to any deaths or cancers or anything like that? No, not specifically. There definitely was not any documented case linking them rigidly, but I mean, there could be, we just don't know, right? Yeah. Because this is very recent, so there could be future cancer diagnoses that mechanistically stem from this product, maybe none, but maybe some. And if that were to be the case, we would not know. We're not going to know. But regardless, it was caught, and then the faulty methodology, you know, it has to be addressed and modified. In fact, in response to this exact situation, there's now new regulation that has been put into place by the FDA to prevent this exact error moving forward. So now all companies have to test drugs for the presence

of nitrosoamines, which is the particular type of molecule that caused this problem. Okay, so there was an error, and then there was what sounds like an appropriate reaction to the situation, and that's somehow heartening, I guess, unless you're one of the people who took that medicine for years on end or something to treat high blood pressure, and then maybe you're sweating a little bit from that. Yeah, and I don't know exactly how long it was on the market before it was discovered. I don't think it was that that long, but yeah, I mean, to me, this is an appropriate people want to pretend that the FDA is this like hopelessly corrupt agency, but it just, it's not. It's a baseless sentiment. Like, they reacted to a situation and implemented a new regulation to

prevent this happening in the future. So FDA or any other such regulatory body, they're not immune to error. But on the whole, these regulatory bodies are massive, profoundly necessary safeguards, which ensure that there aren't harmful substances in drugs that go to market. That's the whole point of them existing. Do you know how they found that, that harmful substance in there, if the FDA didn't? Like, who's looking at drugs after they're already out? I don't know. Or perhaps they caught it later, or yeah, I would have to look into that. Yeah, I'm curious. I just thought of that because I'm thinking, like, I don't go in my Tylenol and go, let me just make sure this is only acetametaphon. Right. Yeah. Somebody characterized it later. I don't know if it was

in academia or if it was another company or if it was the regulatory body that came back to it again or something. Yeah. It seems like if you're making a generic version of a drug, you might go, all right, well, we have to make sure this is, oh, crap, there's this all this other stuff in there. Well, how come that happens to us and it doesn't happen to them? I don't know. It's their stuff. Oh, my God, they have it too and nobody knows. Yeah. But then you're 10 years in or 20 years in, right? So it's been a long time if that's how they catch it. Yeah, well, that's why if you change the methodology, right, if you don't use exactly the same synthetic pathway, I mean, even if you do use the same synthetic pathway, you can make a mistake, so you still have to test everything rigorously. But especially if you change the pathway somehow, you got to test and make sure at the end that you have what you're supposed to have and nothing that you're not supposed to have, pretty much. Yeah, I do understand that blind anti-government sentiment, which is more common now seemingly tends to contaminate the way people view these kinds of government agencies. The FDA has been under crazy fire.

in the past few years, and a lot of it just seems a little unhinged. I mean, some of it maybe is legit, but a lot of it is almost like, they're completely funded by big pharma, and I'll ask you that in a second, but are there examples we can point to that might rehabilitate that idea, or the idea that they're not terrible and corrupt? Yeah, I mean, there's so many examples. I mean, people who are super, super anti-farmma, one of their favorite examples to bring up is thalidomide to try to cite the harm that pharmaceutical drugs can have, and that is legitimate because people don't know what the litemite is. This was in like the 1950s or so. It was a drug that was marketed. It was supposed to cure morning sickness, which it did. But then the other

an antiomir, remember we talked about the two mirror images. At the time, this was pretty much everything was marketed in racemic form with both the mirror images. So the other mirror image, which was also in the pill, caused birth defects, fairly severe ones. So there were a bunch of babies that were born with these pretty terrible birth defects. Yeah, I think it was like missing limbs and stuff like that and not like little kind of like claw yeah hands and feet just really deformed limbs hands and feet in particular yeah very tragic it is it's awful i looked up some pictures of this before focal melia is the name of the condition of these people yeah i looked it up because it's in billy joles we didn't start the fire and this was that drug was in common use in europe

for morning sickness and i think it is i know i'm such a d'arck for saying this but it's Lebanon Charles de Gaul, California baseball, stark weather, homicide, children of thalidomide, right? Remember that sort of phrase? And I was like, what the whole is that? I'm not a fan of him, but I don't remember. I guess I'm not either. That song's just extremely catchy. You can't really, can't hate on that. Well, anybody that puts thalidomide as a song lyric, that's interesting. I mean, you gotta give them a little credit for rhyming thalidomide with anything. I'll give him some credit for that, yeah. Okay, got a little sidetrack. But back to the point, this is why we are talking about this. That happened in Europe, as he said, do you

want to guess why it didn't reach America. Okay. Well, was it the FDA? That's right. The FDA, right? The FDA saved Americans. So the FDA kept asking for more tests because they weren't convinced of the safety. So it wasn't able to reach the American market before reports of the birth defects started coming out. Wow. Okay. Well, somebody deserves a freaking medal for that one because probably hundreds of thousands of kids dodged figurative bullets on this and families. Probably not hundreds of thousands, but, well, it depends on how long it would have got. I mean, in Europe, there were a few hundred, maybe a thousand cases. I'm not sure exactly, but, I mean, it's a lot. But for even one to occur in America would have been a tragedy. And you mentioned a medal. Somebody did get a

medal, actually. They got a presidential medal of honor for this, for preventing the lidamide from being sold in America. But there's more to it than, it's not just about, oh, there was this one drug that was dangerous and we got saved from it. This was the 1950s. So we're talking about, This is a long time ago in the timeline of drug development, so it's not as sophisticated. It was not as sophisticated then as it is now. And that was a moment where we learned a valuable lesson about an antio purity. Again, we're talking about in antioPure versus the racemic, the two mirror images. So new regulations as a result of this were put into place in terms of, first of all,

testing all possible stereoisomers and requiring in antioPure synthetic pathways if necessary. So going, okay, if there's two mirror images, let's make sure the wrong one doesn't do something terrible. Right. Test both instead of treating it like one chemical. Test both to see if they do different things. Okay. Exactly, because in some cases they do. Usually they don't, but maybe they do. But even more important than that, this is a big deal. New regulations were put into place because of this tragedy in terms of fetal toxicology testing. So specifically testing in terms of what a drug will do to a developing fetus. And this was, it's a little shocking to think about, but this was not required before this incident. There was no testing at all on what drugs would do to a pregnant

mother that had a developing fetus inside of her. Wow. So after this, that became a very stringent regulation in place that was yet another safeguard that the industry then had to comply to. They have to do these fetal toxicology testing on any drug that goes to market because of this incident. So this is, again, you know, the industry reacted to ensure that a tragedy like that never took place again, and it never has. I mean, not about. that magnitude, certainly. Bad things sometimes happen, but look, I'm a eternal optimist. We can face them head on, admit what went wrong, implement changes for the future as long as everybody's willing to do all those things. Still terrifying, though, man. It makes me feel really blessed that I'm not

dependent on any medications, at least right now, for the time being. Sure. Yeah, it's better to take no drugs, but people need drugs, right? Because we're not living as primitive people. We can, we understand the human body, we can, you know, make these compounds that help us. But we make them. We are humans, our institutions, and our industries are comprised of humans. We're not gods. We're not infallible. Mistakes happen, and no one is denying that. But these regulatory bodies are here for very important reasons, and they do very important things. So people need to know and understand that. Because without these, the private sector, would not self-regulate ethically. The private sector, their only driver is profit. So they have to be kept in check somehow. That's the purpose of these

regulatory agencies. Otherwise, they would do us harm, maybe not intentionally, but, or maybe intentionally for profit and hope they get away with it. I mean, it's not unheard of, I suppose. Not intentionally, probably. I mean, it's, pharmaceutical companies are not these vile monsters that are going, ha, ha, ha, how can I poison the world? It's just so infantile. And yet the narrative is shockingly prevalent. So it's not like that. They're not. villains, but the point is that under capitalism, profits will be prioritized over everything else. Nobody denies that. So certainly, you know, if they can cut corners, if they can save money somehow, if they can, whatever it is, they will do it, even if it results in harm. So that's the purpose

of the regulatory bodies. That's why they're established. So prior to the FDA, anybody could sell anything and make any claim about what it does. They could say anything they want, put something in a bottle and go, this cures your blah, blah, blah, it cures your warts or whatever, you know, and they could just sell you a drug. It doesn't work. Snake oil. Yeah, snake oil. This was perfectly legal. You could sell anything you want, or it could even be harmful to the consumer. It is just a wild west, totally unregulated, very dangerous landscape. So this is why the FDA exists. These regulatory bodies are the checks and balances that we absolutely need. I just think it's scary because the consequences of being wrong are so freaking enormous. And by the way, people are going to be upset about what we just said

about them not being villains or whatever. You want to hear a counterpoint episode 709 with John Abramson, Dr. John Abramson, how big pharma broke American healthcare. It's not about like the FDA and drug companies being evil, but it's about how the U.S. healthcare system just is horrendous. Which is much broader. Yeah, I don't think you would disagree with anything he says, really. I mean, he's mostly railing on our crap ass, a super expensive healthcare system that we have here that's just been ravaged by corporations. Which extends far beyond the pharmaceutical industry. For sure. It's way beyond the scope what we're talking about. I just want to give people a counterpoint whenever they're like, you're being paid, you're a shill.

I'm like, here's me not being a shill at all and actually shooting myself. If I were a shill, like me getting fired from that job, episode 709. We're two self-employed guys sitting in our living rooms or offices in our home. Right, with no pants on, or is that just me? I've got shorts. But the consequences of being wrong about this stuff, like I said, are just so freaking huge, right? The opiates thing, Purdue Pharma, that comes to mind. I mean, that's what people are thinking.

They're not evil. Look at the Sackler family. Those sons of bitches killed hundreds of thousands of people with their crap. And they're not wrong about that. No, they're not. It's just that, okay, the opiates thing, to be fair, opiates are important painkillers. They should exist. They are important drugs that should exist.

they also are very addictive, that people have a tendency to abuse them. It's a much broader societal problem. You can't just blame pharma for abusive painkillers. It's like blaming Budweiser for alcohol abuse or something. I mean, granted, it's a little more nuanced because we're talking about prescription drugs. So doctors in the medical establishment, there's a broad range of implications here. Admittedly, you bring up a specific example of deceptive marketing that is not ethical, it is unfortunate. But we're talking about these isolated incidents that have much broader implications than just going the bad pharma people you can't tear down this entire system because of these examples you know what i mean yeah speaking of an example that's not

exactly the same thing what about the tylonal cyanide thing you remember that a bunch of people died because of poison tyllanol it was like a local Midwest thing maybe it was in the 80s Chicago i mean i'm vaguely aware of it but this is like somebody tampered with the product right in i guess i don't know i don't think anybody really knows who did that or why. I mean, the company's not going to knowingly poison consumers. That's just ridiculous. They're just inviting lawsuits for absolutely no reason. So, yeah, I mean, some deranged person went to stores and added cyanide to Tylenol bottles. That's insane, but serial killers exist. Very much outliers, right? It's just a handful of people

around the world like this, but people do these really bizarre things sometimes. I guess I was wondering what you thought about that. Again, it was a way off example, but it's not like They're making cyanide pills on the conveyor belt next to the Tylenol. Yeah. And it flipped over into there and landed in the bottle. I mean, this is somebody unscrewing the lids. And at that time, I think there were no seals. It was just like, oh, you can push hard on the child proof cap if that even existed.

Right. Pop a cyanide in there or whatever, add something in. I guess it seems like people who are just generally anti-establishment can't figure out that being anti-government in such a scenario, it actually means being pro-corporation in ways that they probably would not advocate or agree with. They're also anti-farmma and things like that. Yeah, I mean, this is a thing that makes me laugh a lot. It's very hypocritical with this stuff. Like, I just, people want to rage against the machine. It's just like a sentiment that we all have to an extent. But when it's in this ignorant way, it's very sophomoric. There's not just one power

to rage against. There's a public sector and there's a private sector. We need both. And the point is that neither should have tremendously more power than the other. We don't want an authoritarian government that controls all labor in manufacturing. We don't want that. But we also don't want an out-of-control corporatocracy that has the government in its pocket and uses lobbying or bribery to escape any kind of regulation and just squeeze the economy dry and totally screw us over. They're both bad situations. Even in authoritarian regimes, I remember that China had, I can't remember what was in the milk. Do you remember the milk thing in China? where this guy, the company, had added some sort of chemical agent to milk to basically just

make the quantity larger, and it was obviously toxic, and it killed a bunch of babies, and they executed him for that. Wow. It was just a really crappy shortcut, so it's not, you can't even avoid this kind of thing. You basically, you need the FDA. You can't just be like, hey, we're going to control everything from start to finish with a manufacturer, because even that doesn't work. Like, you really do need these kinds of checks and balances.

And it seems like, speaking of corporatocracy that uses lobbying and bribery to escape regulation, it seems like if anything, we're closer to the latter. Yeah. We're closer to that idea. We are. I mean, that's like I understand to an extent being anti-government, but when you then try to rage against regulatory bodies that are trying to keep an out-of-control corporatocracy in check, that's just crazy to be right.

Unfettered capitalism is the issue. I think people tend to regurgitate this like Reagan-esque mantra of, we need less government, we need less government. And this is just like, it's a smokescreen put in place by huge corporations to try to garner public support for their own deregulation, right? It's just the corporations want people repeating this sentiment because they want regulations to be even looser upon themselves. It's a propaganda campaign, basically.

And it got to touch political, but I think it's funny that earlier we're talking about how we need capitalism for innovation and the patents and everything to protect that innovation. And then we're also saying it's almost like we're having a nuanced discussion that is not completely tribal and one-sided, Dave. I don't know. Are we allowed to do that? I'm not sure we're allowed to do that, man. We're bold. We're paving the way. But even fans of small government can agree with what you're saying is what I'm trying to say here. I mean, I hope so, right? Because we don't want to go back to prior to regulatory bodies where anybody can sell you anything with nobody there to check if it's safe or effective or any, I mean, it's just, this is terrible, right? We don't, you know,

I do stick to the science for the most part, but there are these broader ramifications that you've got elucidate. So sometimes when you're talking about science, it turns into social commentary and this kind of balancing act between the private and the public sectors that were seemed to be destined to try to put in balance for the rest of human civilization, I think. What about, before I let you go here, what about the idea and I hear this all the time and I see it podcasts all the time. Big Pharma pays the FDA's budget. It's something like nine, and the percentage goes up depending on the amount of caffeine the person's had who's screaming it into the microphone. Right, right, right, right. But they'll say like, it's 90% budget is paid for by Big Pharma. So, of course,

they're going to do what they want. You know, have you seen this before or heard this before? I think so. I mean, I tend to, tune it out. I mean, it doesn't work like that, right? It's a federal institution. It's not like they pay the budget. That's not how it is. I mean, there are fees that have to be paid for product approval. That's true. You know, I hesitate to comment. I don't know anything about like the pure bureaucratic side. But yeah, I don't know. I tend to just this idea that the FDA is in big pharma's pocket and just does whatever they say, there's just no basis to it. Well, all right, maybe less snarky humor in this one than usual, but I've definitely gotten a broader perspective on all of this. And hopefully those listening have as well. I'm still

nervous about medication and prefer to take it only when I absolutely have to, but I'm also super grateful that we even have this technology and the science behind it is frankly really amazing. So thank you again, Dave, for joining us on Skeptical Sunday. Thanks so much for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of the show can always come to me. Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. Pretty much every episode of this show that we've done on Skeptical Sunday has been a fan suggestion, so you guys are money.

Keep them coming. Jordan Harbinger.com. Show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com as well. Transcripts are in the show notes. Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show are all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram or just connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Dave at Professor Dave Explains on YouTube or, of course, linked in the show notes. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millio Campo, and Gabriel Mizrahi.

Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, so do your own research before implementing anything you hear on this show. Remember, we've rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love, and if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use a good dose of the skepticism that we doled out here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. If you're looking for another episode of the Jordan Harbinger Show to check out, here's a trailer

with FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss. Chase Manhattan bank robbery. I'm a second negotiated on the phone. Hugh McGowan is a commander of the NYPD team. He puts me on a phone and he takes this guy off. He says, you're up, you're next. This is what I want you to do. You're just going to take over the phone and say you're talking to me.

And we're going to do it really abruptly. My point is to get a hostage out, which is what the hostage negotiator is supposed to do. And somebody hands me a note and says, ask him if he wants to come out. That was somebody that was listening. My friend, Jamie, Jamie Sedano. Jamie's sitting there and something in Jamie's instincts is telling him that this guy wants to come out more than anything else. He just hears it. And he writes, ask him if he wants to come out.

I see a note pop in front of my face. So I go, do you want to come out? And there's a long silence on the other end of the line. And the guy says, I don't know how I do that. Which is a great big giant, yes. Yeah. Everybody goes like, holy cow, okay. get him out of there.

I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm talking. Again, probably about, I don't know, maybe half an hour later. No note comes in my hand. I don't know where it's from. As it turns out, it's from Jamie again. And the note says, tell him you meet him outside. And I say, tell him. How about this?

I'm not if I meet you out front of the bank. And he goes, yeah, I'm ready to do in the shit. I get out there, I get on the PA, I start talking to him. So I said, hi, it's Chris, I'm out here. Standard operating procedure is to barricade the exit from the outside, so bad guy suddenly doesn't run away. So SWAT has barricaded the bank from the outside, which everyone has forgotten. So I'm trying to talk this guy out the door. We don't know how many bad guys are inside.

We don't know how they're going to react. We don't know what the hell's going to happen. He comes to the door. He can't get out. Oh, God. That would be as he rattles the door. rattles the door. Everybody's like,

ah! He's nervous, right? I mean, no crap. I'm trapped in here now. Yeah, and on the outside, we're going, nah, what do we forgot to unlock the door? And our bad guy is kind of like, oh,

I'm going to play games with me, huh? For more from FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss, including negotiation and persuasion tips, along with a few crazy stories, check out episode 165 of the Jordan Harbinger show. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast.

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