2006
46 Mins
1-932869-05-0
![This film has subtitles]()
English
Big Bucks, Big Pharma
Marketing Disease & Pushing Drugs
Synopsis
Big Bucks, Big Pharma pulls back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry to expose the insidious ways that illness is used, manipulated, and in some instances created, for capital gain. Focusing on the industry's marketing practices, media scholars and health professionals help viewers understand the ways in which direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising glamorizes and normalizes the use of prescription medication, and works in tandem with promotion to doctors. Combined, these industry practices shape how both patients and doctors understand and relate to disease and treatment. Ultimately, Big Bucks, Big Pharma challenges us to ask important questions about the consequences of relying on a for-profit industry for our health and well-being.
Featuring interviews with Dr. Marcia Angell (Dept. of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Former Editor, New England Journal of Medicine), Dr. Bob Goodman (Columbia University Medical Center; Founder, No Free Lunch), Gene Carbona (Former Pharmaceutical Industry Insider and Current Executive Director of Sales, The Medical Letter), Katharine Greider (Journalist; Author, The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers), Dr. Elizabeth Preston (Dept. of Communication, Westfield State College), and Dr. Larry Sasich (Public Citizen Health Research Group).
Introduction | Branding Drugs | Swimming in Pills | Disease Mongering | No Free Lunch | A Healthier Prescription
Release Date:2006
Duration:46 Mins
ISBN:1-932869-05-0
Subtitles:English
Trailers
Filmmaker Credits
Producer & Editor:
Ronit Ridberg
Writers:
Ronit Ridberg, Loretta Alper, Jeremy Earp & Sut Jhally
Executive Producer:
Sut Jhally
Associate Producers:
Loretta Alper & Jeremy Earp
Narrator:
Amy Goodman
Film Festivals
Resources: Downloads and Related Links
Downloads:
Praise
"As this documentary so clearly and simply shows, we need to become 'healthy skeptics' and be better prepared to face a world where disease is being sold and drug companies are bankrolling the 'education' of the general public through advertising both drugs and diseases."
- Alan Cassels
Drug Policy Researcher at the University of Victoria
Co-author of Selling Sickness
Drug Policy Researcher at the University of Victoria
Co-author of Selling Sickness
"As an organizer and educator around issues of mental health and Big Pharma, I've found this film to be the BEST tool in my tool chest. It's slick, convincing, credible and engaging. It inevitably generates feisty discussion."
- Angela Bischoff
Greenspiration, Canada
Greenspiration, Canada
"Drug companies now spend more than $12 billion a year hawking the newest, most expensive brand-name drugs to patients and doctors in the U.S., regardless of whether those drugs are truly needed or any better than what's been available for years. Big Bucks, Big Pharma is an incisive exposé of how marketing has infected everything doctors and patients learn about drugs, and a much-needed antidote to the tidal wave of self-serving drug company propaganda that dominates the airwaves. Anyone who ever prescribes or takes a pill should see this documentary."
- Alex Sugerman-Brozan
The PAL Project
The PAL Project