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All of us rely on the federal government to protect us from industries selling poison. That’s why we have thousands of regulations and people working to enforce them.

And yet, according to former CBS News investigative reporter, Sharyl Attkison, one industry is not only getting away with poisoning the American people, it’s doing so with gigantic taxpayer subsidies: Big Pharma.

We should, of course, be grateful for the remarkable drugs available to us and our loved ones. They save millions of lives every year.

However, the evidence is overwhelming that the pharmaceutical industry is abusing its power. Its role in creating America’s opioid addiction crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the decades, the government has allowed pharmaceutical companies to sell products that either don’t work better than a placebo or cause serious harm and death.

Now, Attkisson is out with a new book, Follow The Science, that documents the pharmaceutical industry’s corruption of government and medical schools.

Her book, already a bestseller, comes at a moment of growing alarm about the poor and declining health of the American people.

”Chronic diseases have exploded in nature over the past couple of decades without our public health establishment and doctors seeming to notice,” Attkisson told me in a new Public podcast. “Or, if they notice, they're sure not doing anything about it other than throwing pills and treatments at it. We have to understand why the system exists in that way.”