Michael Specter Quotes
I have never earned one penny from any pharmaceutical company. I will never accept one penny from them either. Ever.
Specter, Michael. "Science AMA Series: I'm Michael Specter, Staff Writer at The New Yorker." Reddit, 2014.
The immediate trigger for this statement was the Mylan Company’s price increase of 500 percent for Epi-pens which people—frequently children—needed to carry to contact a bad allergic reaction that would other wise put them into anaphylactic shock which could be fatal. One of the reasons the company gave for the increase was that their marketing costs were very high. The practice of paying physicians to use a drug and then give testimonials and pitch the drug had long been controversial, but in 2016 the public learned that the practice was much more widespread than anyone had known. Making the situation worse was the fact that physicians would prescribe the drug for their patients and had no obligation to tell the patient or his/her family that he was being paid by the drug company. The Congress held hearings but did nothing at the time.
Explaining his reasons for resigning from the Justice Department under Edwin Meese:
Michael Specter (born 1955) is an American journalist who has been a staff writer, focusing on science and technology, and global public health at The New Yorker since September 1998. He has also written for The Washington Post and The New York Times. Since 2019, he has also been an Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University. From 2012-2016 Specter was a Visiting Professor of Environmental and Urban Studies at Bard College.
