has said it's a little detour from the normal community and i think people really enjoyed it.

california where the festival is being held and we are now enjoy and you can see it on the right side of the screen next to the c-span bus. kathleen sharp is our guest and blood medicine is the book. >> depo is a drug that multiplies your blood cells so much that you can climb and alpine mountain on a bicycle or you can fight chemotherapy and lived hopefully to survive cancer. >> is it on the market today? >> it is on the market which is amazing because this is a drug that doesn't really work as advertised and actually hurts

people because it multiplies a red blood cells but also multiplies cancer cells so as many as ten to 15% of the 20 million people who've taken this drug have died over the years according to many medical studies. >> who developed it? >> sort of a wonderful story because it had promised in the beginning. but as tax payers help develop it back in the 70's and 80's, a wonderful man by the name of eugene has been working at the university of chicago and he was able to get ahold of this drug after many taxpayers' dollars and at the time it was just a tiny biotech shops and they worked on it and worked on it and were able to actually patent it and put it out in the market. they were so tiny at the time that they needed a marketing muscle to go after it and that is when they linked up with johnson & johnson, who of course

is a wonderful company allegedly that makes no more tears baby shampoo and band-aids. .. >> that this was the next big thing. but as time went on, amgen and j&j kept fighting for market share, and it became not only a huge bestseller, but a pretty vicious, competitive deal between the two companies. >> who was mark ducksberriesome.

>> he was one of the top salesmen at j&j, and he was a very charming guy -- charming guy who loved to tell jokes to the nurses, and he wore these wacky ties that would break ice, and he really believed in the goodness of this drug. what you had was a lot of people who were undergoing blood transfightses and that, of course, is -- transfusions, and that, of course, is very painful. but if we they could get one sh, they were good to go for a month or so. so he was trying to sell doctors on this. but what he did at the time he didn't realize this was illegal, but he would pay doctors to speak highly at various conferences, or he would pay doctors to fly around the country to speak at other conventions. he would reward doctors with free drugs knowing that they were going to bill medicare and medicaid for the top dollar. and at some point he said, wait a minute, you know, this is wrong, it's illegal, and also when the company -- both companies started to market the

high doses, overdoses that had not been approved by the fda, that's when he said, enough. you know? i have to stop this. in fact, i'm going to go on up the chain of command to alert people that this is going on. >> host: now, mark ducksberry is now dead. >> guest: well, that's a spoiler alert, isn't it? yes. he did die during -- >> host: but did you talk with him? >> guest: mark called, mark called me many, many times starting in 2004. he was so upset that our government and the fda was not pursuing what he thought was a crime. but he thought the press could do it. so when he first told me about this story, i was like it's too incredible to be true. i'm not going to take this on. but he was a very good salesman, and he'd call and tell me jokes and really kind of spoon feed me pharmacology 101. and everything changed in 2007, and that's when the fda decided to put a black box warning on this drug which is the sternest warning you can give and also congress was holding hearings

into the very fast sales practices of j&j and amgen. so i got on a red eye from santa barbara, california, to washington, d.c., and the next morning i stepped into this amazing drama unfolding nationally about the scandal, about the deaths, and most importantly, i had these two men -- mark ducksberry and his best friend, dean mcclelland -- who were happy to tell me the story. >> host: we want to put the phone lines up because we only have a half an hour with kathleen sharp. "blood medicine: blowing the whistle on one of the deadliest prescription drugs ever." 585-3885 if you live in the east and central time zones, 585-3886 in the mountain and pacific time zones. you can send -- you can make a comment on facebook, facebook.com/booktv. kathleen sharp, how is it that mark ducksbear recame to --

ducksberry came to you? >> guest: he read some of my other work, and i'd also understood very complicated stories, and i can make them pretty simple by concentrating on the characters and the plot. and so mac had read some of these -- mark had read some of these and, frankly, he'd already gone to the wall street journal, "the new york times," the l.a. times and nobody wanted to touch the story. because at the time this was a huge, blockbuster drug. in fact, it was the number one reimbursed drug on medicare's list for many, many years. >> host: how much has medicare reimbursed people or, you know -- >> guest: right. medicare has reimbursed this drug for $100 billion over the last 20 years, which is really astonishing when you think of this is a drug that never claimed to cure a disease and never really worked as advertised. and, actually, the fda has said, patients, do everything you can

to stay off of this drug. and many people have pulled back including the doctors who are earning a lot of money. >> host: well, then why hasn't the fda outlawed it or banned it? >> guest: you would think they would actually yank it from the shelves. but what we have right now is a sort of for-profit system in medicine. the companies are very astute, very clever with lobbying. johnson & johnson has a whole team, as does amgen, of lobbyists who go around, and they're very effective that way. whereas, you know, here we are, the average taxpayer doesn't have that large a voice if you listen to many people whose loved ones have died from this drug. >> host: you fly to washington, what happens? >> guest: i fly to washington, and i walk in, there's packed room at the fda meeting. and i listen as people who have loved, you know, lost their loved ones testify about this drug and how they had no idea that they should have signed consent forms to allow their loved ones to be injected with

this drug. they had no idea that they were getting the high dose and not the fda-approved dose. the stories were astonishing. and there was one woman in particular that i met who lost her high school sweetheart, jim lennox, and he died in the most horrific way which was blood streaming out of his mouth, his nose, his ears, gasping for breath -- >> host: on the family couch. >> guest: on the family couch. he had almost beat cancer, but instead he died from the very thing that was supposed to help him. >> host: and she and you attribute his death directly to his use of epo? >> guest: she definitely does. she's talked with doctors and scientists who also agree with her. and the sad thing about this particular case is that sharon lennox did not have enough money to go get an autopsy of her husband. and she found obstacle after obstacle in trying to press her legal suit against the hospital and the two drug makers, and at some point she just ran out of dollars. and this is what happens to the

average, everyday person. >> host: and so she's given up on that? >> guest: she's given up, although she has talked to many reporters at "the washington post," "wall street journal" and, of course, to me, so she's still telling her story. and i consider her to be sort of one of the everyday heroes. >> host: kathleen sharp, how common was it for drug companies, etc., how common is it to have doctors endorse their products for money? >> guest: it's very common. it was very common. they would call them key opinion leaders. you would take the top doctor at johns hopkins or stanford university, and if you could convince him to talk up your drug and to appear at these wonderful conferences, other doctors who looked up to this gentleman would, of course, follow the protocol. so once you get those key opinion leaders in your pocket, so to speak, you can really multiply your sales tremendously. now, i think there's been a lot of heat on pharmaceuticals in the last four or five years.

we've seen a lot of companies come forward and settle fraud cases. for several hundred million or in some cases $3 billion. so a lot of these companies are, you know, they're more careful about it. but i hear tales all the time of really fast and loose marketing to the extent that a lot of consumers have no idea what -- why they're taking this drug. >> host: did the fda talk to you for this book? >> guest: yes, the fda did. in fact, one of my sources actually died from cancer, and she had taken epo. it's just astonishing, almost every time i turned around, someone was passing away. i think all of us know someone who has beat cancer or has succumbed to it. but the fda, interestingly enough, doesn't have a lot of power. we would hope that they would, but they don't have the authority to just yank a drug off of the shelves. >> host: why not? >> guest: a lot of times in this book, for example, i found out that many attorneys who are overseeing the fda at the time

would squash the fda staff members. and one attorney if -- in particular, by the name of daniel troy, and he now works for a pharmaceutical company. but you had this revolving door in either the department of justice, fda or any other regulator, and it would make your head spin, frankly, to see how quickly these people go between regulating and being regulated. so oftentimeses they go back to great jobs, much better paying jobs, you know, defending the pharmaceuticals and, unfortunately, this is sort of in the system that we have here in america. >> host: given the topic that you discuss in here and the strength with which you discuss it, did this have to be vetted by attorneys -- >> guest: oh, certainly was. [laughter] yes. in-house attorneys at dutton, my wonderful publisher, and they also hired attorneys who had worked with carl bernstein, and we spent months and months. and, of course, now i'm very delighted that new regency,

which is on the 20th century fox studio lot, has just bought the movie rights, hired two screenwriters, great screenwriters who did the story "tower heist," maybe you know of it? and they've just hired ali sheer who was in charge of "hunger games." so it's a wonderful testimony to the efforts of these wonderful men, and it will also give the public a whole other reason to come out and see this national drama being played out on the big screen. because it touches all of us. you know, the fraud in our system right now is $300 billion a year in medicare and medicaid. and that's fraud and waste. and this story sort of gives you an inside look as to how it's played out. >> host: did you learn something in researching "blood medicine" about the marketing of drugs? >> guest: the marketing of drugs is very slick, and one of the biggest things that pharma

depends on are beautiful tv commercials. we are the only civilized country besides, i think, new zealand that allows pharmaceutical drugs, you know, medical drugs to be advertised on television in 60-second increments. you hear that lush, beautiful music, you see these happy, healthy people running around, and you can barely hear the disclaimers that are flashing across the screen. and so a lot of people, you know, who want to feel healthy and happy will go to their doctor the next week and ask for that particular drug. and that's part of the waste that's in our system. and i think if we prevented or if we prohibited the marketing of drugs in that way, we'd be a lot healthier. >> host: first call for kathleen sharp comes from david in shreveport, louisiana. david, go ahead, please. >> caller: yes, how you doing, kathleen? my mother was -- [inaudible]

we think to her death with heart problems. we live in the south. women like to take -- i'd really like to take more responsibility for my health, i'm on a lot of medication. [inaudible] what would you suggest for people like me that live in the south that may not have many alternatives for going to a type of doctor, what would you suggest? [inaudible] >> host: go ahead. >> guest: well, i applaud you for taking responsibility for your own health and trying to get off of all those medications. one of the things i would do is try to go online, although i have to tell you that a lot of times we're not able to find out all the information that we need by going online. i would try simple things. i didn't quite understand, and forgive me, what your ailments are, but exercise, you know, great healthy food, getting off

the couch, walking around. the simple sort of time-honored things that for centuries people have used to keep healthy are extremely important. and starting in a few months, you'll be able to ask your doctor under obamacare if he or she is actually taking money from a pharmaceutical company. and if he or she is and taking money for the particular drug that they're tribing you -- prescribing you, then perhaps they're not bribing that drug because -- prescribing that drug because it's good for you, but because they're lining their pocket or somehow benefiting in another way. and legally those doctors are going to have to disclose every year what gifts and funds they do take. so keep an eye out for that. >> host: so right now doctors can be on the payroll of a pharmaceutical company, any -- of a company in a sense and not have to disclose that? >> guest: yes, that's right. but now there'll be a national sort of online database where all of us can type in our

doctors' names and see what sort of payments they're receiving from pfizer. and often times, you know, there are legitimate things that are going on. but the more we know as consumers, the better we can take care of ourselves. so i really applaud in this aspect of obamacare. >> host: "blood medicine" is the name of the book, and gina is calling from fresno. please go ahead. >> caller: hi, kathleen, this is gina. >> guest: hi. >> caller: i really thank you for writing your book. i have personal experience as well as we just lost our sister-in-law, and she was on that drug, and then -- >> guest: oh. >> caller: -- they took it away from her, and she had bone cancer, and she had two little girls. and her doctor has known her for 35 years. she had worked at the hospital. and he begged for the drug back, and they all just cried, and so personally he didn't, he didn't

know. and he had processed the drug, and this was the -- talked up the drug, and this was the next best thing. and she just cried and cried and cried when the drug company didn't give it to her as promised for free because he had done so much for the drug company. and, um, we lost her right after they went ahead and gave it to her. >> guest: i'm sorry. >> caller: and within a few weeks. so -- >> host: gina, thank you for sharing your story. >> guest: oh, thank you. >> host: kathleen sharp. >> guest: thank you, gina, and i'm very sorry for your loss. >> host: move on to thomas in statesville, north carolina. thomas, please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: yes. good afternoon, kathleen. you had already touched on what i was going to ask about was the fact that over the past several years i've seen what you're talking about, the commercials

and how they've just openly advertised to us as consumers instead of actually going through the doctors or caregivers is what it seemed like. and out just seems like, to me, the side effects like you were talking about, there's just so many side effects with just, you know, like a heart burn, you know, just something simple. so how is all of this, you know, allowed to be put out on the market? it seems like, to me, without really being tested or, you know, if it's any good, you know? i mean, it just seems like we're being used as guinea pigs. now, is it just the system? basically, is there a way for us to change it, you know, to fix it? >> guest: well, it's a great point you've raised, and indeed, we are guinea pigs to an extent because companies can only test the drugs on a small patient population. but once it's approved, then it goes out in a big way

nationally. and one hinge that i've learned -- one thing that i've learned is the first seven years after a drug is approved it's pretty risky because every drug husbandriesings and benefits. there's nothing that's 100% guaranteed. but it takes about seven years for a drug to be in the, you know, greater population. and that's when we find out really serious risks. and a lot of times these drugs like epo will be either pulled, or the black box will be slapped on them. so i encourage people to stay away from a very new, experimental drug unless they have no hope for anything else. >> host: kathleen sharp, why was epo, if there's so many problems, did amgen, did j&j believe in it at first? did the doctor who developed it belief in it? >> guest: oh, absolutely. everyone believed in it. and there was good reason to. but what these people started to do, j&j became instead of partners, they were enemies. and they would do -- they undercut one another, and they would go to extreme lengths to

get a bigger and bigger market. and, of course, most of us know how huge a problem cancer is, but it also happens to be the most lucrative disease out there. so any company -- a lot of companies are going for $100,000 drugs because they see all that money. most of which is medicare and medicaid. so these companies were fighting for all of that cash, and the big cash cow was the one that you and i subsidize through our taxes, which is medicare and medicaid. >> host: this drug used -- is this drug used recreationally or for other uses? [laughter] >> guest: ing oh, well, now we know it is. many years many of us suspected that lance armstrong in particular and many of the heroes that we look at in tour de france were using it. and we now know that lance last august actually confessed that he had. but here's the thing about lance armstrong. first of all, i wonder if he got testicular cancer because of in this drug. because it multiplies your

cancer cells. and i also am very grateful that he did not have to suffer like some of your callers did by, you know, dying or losing some of his loved ones. his teammates. so it'll be interesting as time goes on to see where lance got that drug, where the professional athletes got that. and if it's so widespread, then there's lots of other ethical questions like should we let all the athletes use these drugs? but the thing that i'm most upset about is that patients, you know, were not informed. armstrong and all these great athletes were informed, and they knew the risks they were taking. but a lot of people out there are, indeed, treated like guinea pigs, and it's only the fact that they realize what the real risks were. >> host: what are the sales of epo today as compared to 10 years ago, 15 years ago? >> guest: well, sales have fallen, but only to about a billion a year. so it's still out there. doctors are still using it.

i think the biggest sector is dialysis patients. they need energy, and, you know, their kidneys don't work anymore, so that blood product is helping them. but many people in that medical sector are also overweight, they're prone to heart attacks, and what happens with epo is it multiplies your red blood cells so much that your blood turns to sludge, and your heart can't pump it through your body. you have heart attacks, strokes, or like jim lennox, it just, you know, pours out of you in other ways. >> host: next call, john, salem, oregon. please go ahead. >> caller: i was very saddened to see what appears to me, kathleen, to be an overly simplistic and poorly researched presentation over the course of the past, i don't know, half hour or so i've been watching. i'm a neonaytologist. i have been so for 40 years, and the drug has been used particularly in preterm infants to reduce the incidence and need

of blood transfusion and has been carefully used and has been also pound to be beneficial -- found to be beneficial in repair and regeneration of the central nervous system after it's been damaged. i think there are a number of very well-researched, carefully-managed, nonup into theirly advanced uses of this medication that you've thoroughly ignored. >> host: so, john, doctor, you have used epo regularly? >> guest: it is a standard replacement in most neonatal intensive care units for blood transfusion. >> guest: well, i don't argue that there's not a good use for it. what this very well-researched book is all about is the illegal and fraudulent ways it was sold to an unsuspecting public. many people are still on it, as we just discussed, and epo is

still being sold for about a billion a year, but i do not condone at all, and i think many listeners would not like to be deceived or given an overdose without giving their consent as is legally required. and i think that's what the entire tale is about. >> host: and, unfortunately, john is gone. we couldn't follow up with him. but, um, do you think it should be a banned drug? >> guest: i am not a doctor, but all i do -- i do know that the risks should be much, much more widespread than they are, or at least people should know, and that's why the drug sales have fallen from 13 billion a year to about 1 billion. and that's why you see j&j actually closing the company that produced it. orr no biotech is no more. so the companies have withdrawn themselves from this whole marketplace a bit, and amgen is now pursuing other infanses. and i should mention that -- instances, and amgen just pled

guilty to fraudulent marketing of this drug and has paid close to $800 million. so -- >> host: to fraudulent marketing. >> guest: right. to fraudulent marketing. >> host: which means what? >> guest: means fraud. in other words, they admitted to the fact that they were paying doctors and illegally marketing the drugging in ways that were not approved. >> host: so where does that $800 million go? >> guest: supposedly, it's supposed to go back to the u.s. treasury. and some will go back to the whistleblowers, 10 or 15%. one of the whistleblowers is saying, wait a minute, that's not enough money. this company sold $44 billion over this time frame, and you're only returning or asking for $700 million? that's pennies on the dollar. so we'll see what happens with that particular case. >> host: where's epo manufactured? >> guest: interestingly enough, epo was manufactured in colorado, but right now it's manufactured in puerto rico and in other foreign places. >> host: is there a reason for

that? >> guest: i -- >> host: does it change the laws at all? >> guest: i do not know. i do know it is a little bit easier for distribution, but that's a great question. >> host: verna smith tweets in, if the fd doesn't have power to regulate drugs, really who does? >> guest: great question. and can we should call for the fda to be much more accountable than it is. but in order to have that happen, we have to have clean money in our political system. and right now amgen can pay $10,000 to a senator and slip into a bill some entitlement. you know, our senators and congressmen are being paid off in order to sort of support a lot of these companies that should be more toughly regulated. >> host: how willing were j&j, johnson & johnson, and amgen to talk to yousome. >> guest: i called j&j probably ten times over the course of four years of reporting this, and i thought surely j&j, which

is known for stepping up to the bat 20 years ago with the tylenol scare when it supposedly withdrew all the tylenol capsules from department stores, surely they would talk to me. but they did not. they refused to cooperate. i asked their attorneys, who i actually liked quite a bit in the hallways, if they would talk to me. and they never did come forward on the record. and that's when i realized how tough it is for whistleblowers to get any sort of response from these companies when they are trying to blow the whistle. and that's when i decided, okay, i'm going to tell the story from the eyes of two whistleblowers and from the patients who suffered. >> host: where's mr. mcclelland today? >> guest: he's down in tucson. he's about to go to court in boston. his attorney is jan schlickman may know from "a civil action," another great book and movie, and jan is scheduled to appear in court with j&j sometime in june to move this 10-year-old

case farther along. >> host: why boston? >> guest: that's where the federal court case is. and evidently, boston and massachusetts in particular is quite consumer-friendly. unlike some of the other federal district courts. >> host: and we've been talking with kathleen sharp. here is her book, "blood medicine: blowing the whistle on one of the deadliest prescription drugs ever." this is booktv on c