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From STAT First Opinion. By Jerry Avorn. Abstract "Around 1990, a bright, young Harvard academic became interested in the possibility that a relatively unknown peptide might slow gastric emptying and reduce hunger — a potential boon to the treatment of diabetes. Although he was employed as a full-time faculty researcher and clinician at a major teaching hospital and his lab was funded by the National Institutes of Health, he chose to pursue this particular line of research pr

From NPR's On Point. By Meghna Chakrabarti. In this October 2025 episode of WBUR's On Point, Dr. Jerry Avorn joins host Meghna Chakrabarti and Sarah Emond, president and CEO of the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), to dissect the Trump administration's TrumpRx initiative, analyze the deals struck with Pfizer and AstraZeneca, and explain why the United States pays dramatically more for prescription drugs than every other wealthy nation on earth. Why Americans

From I'm a Pharmacy Podcast. By Mina Tadrous. This episode of the University of Toronto's I'm Pharmacy podcast opens with a striking image: a bus full of Americans crossing the border into Canada with Senator Bernie Sanders — not for sightseeing, but to buy insulin. The image frames the episode's central question: how did the United States end up with the most expensive prescription drug prices in the world, and what does that mean for the tens of millions of Americans who, u

From The Health Affairs Forefront. By Jerry Avorn, MD and Aaron S. Kesselheim, MD, JD, MPH. SUMMARY: This Health Affairs Forefront piece examines the potential impact of sweeping Trump administration tariffs on the US health care system. The authors argue that tariffs framed as tools of economic and geopolitical strategy carry serious unintended consequences for health care supply chains, hospital budgets, and medication affordability. The piece provides concrete data on US r

From The People’s Pharmacy. Abstract "Americans spend more on drugs and have less to show for it than people in other countries. The FDA used to be the envy of the world. Has it been captured by the pharmaceutical industry it's supposed to regulate?" In this wide-ranging episode of The People's Pharmacy — one of the most substantive and practically useful interviews in the archive — Dr. Jerry Avorn joins hosts Joe and Terry Graedon for a 70-minute conversation covering the er

From the JAMA Health Forum. By Helen Mooney, Kirsten Austad, Eric G. Campbell, Jerry Avorn, MD, Zhigang Lu, Aaron S. Kesselheim, MD, JD, MPH. SUMMARY: This JAMA Health Forum survey study examines how medical students' and residents' interactions with and attitudes toward the pharmaceutical industry changed over a 13-year period from 2011 to 2024. The research team — which includes Avorn, a founding figure in academic detailing research — surveyed the same population of train