Have US pharmaceutical companies created a web of disinformation to boost their profits?

That's the accusation of John Abramson, an academic at Harvard Medical School. In an extended interview with the BBC's Ed Butler, he discusses the thesis of his new book, Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It.

According to Abramson, scandals such as the opioid addiction epidemic caused by drugs like Oxycontin, or the shockingly high cost of insulin in America, have a common cause - the ability of big pharma companies to gull American doctors into overprescribing their premium products.

(Picture: Pills spilling out of a prescription bottle; Credit: Getty Images)