Dopesick
The new Hulu miniseries promotes pernicious misconceptions about opioids, addiction, and pain treatment.
Pharmaceuticals
Two Courts Debunk Persistent Opioid Myths
Both rulings emphasized that opioids have legitimate medical uses and concluded that drug companies could not be held responsible for abuse of their products.
Biden's Drug Price Controls Would Make Americans Sicker and Shorten Their Lives
The plan would reduce supply while increasing demand, resulting in harmful shortages.
Abolish the FDA
The role of the state is to protect rights and guard against fraud, not to prevent people from making risky choices.
Ronald Bailey: Covid-19 Should Be Our Last Pandemic
Technological breakthroughs mean we'll never again have to suffer with disasters like the novel coronavirus—if politicians will get out of the way.
What It's Like To Treat Opioid Addiction in Appalachia
Psychiatrist Sally Satel on her eye-opening year at a clinic in Ironton, Ohio
In Defense of COVID Billionaires
Billionaires may well have enabled our greatest (only?) policy successes in 2020.
Let Volunteers Expose Themselves to COVID-19 To Speed Up a Vaccine
"Economists are accustomed to thinking about tradeoffs," says economist and Nobel laureate Alvin Roth. "It appears that at least in some parts of the ethics community, they are not."
The Trump Administration's $765 Million Kodak Deal Is More Proof That 'Economic Nationalism' Is a Scam
The Trump administration's "economic nationalist" agenda is little more than a cronyist attempt at propping up domestic companies with taxpayer cash.
The Panic About China Cutting Off America's COVID-19 Drug Supply Was Fake News
The Food and Drug Administration now says there is no evidence that any country attempted to cut off America's essential pharmaceuticals.
The Trump Administration Wants To Subsidize Domestic Drug Manufacturing. The First Contract Looks Like a $350 Million Grift.
A member of the five-month-old company's board has been touting bogus stats about America's supposed dependency on Chinese-made drugs.
Are We Seeing Irrational Exuberance Over COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine News?
Stocks rise steeply on good news about mRNA vaccines.
Researchers Around the Globe Are Racing To Discover and Create COVID-19 'Game Changers'
None have yet emerged that can clearly stem the tide of the ongoing pandemic.
What a Headache: California Regulators Want To Label Acetaminophen a Carcinogen
The science is unsettled, and a new warning label would probably just confuse people.
Terminal Patients Got Drugs Without FDA Approval. It Added Years to Their Lives.
The Right to Try movement, which recently became federal law, allows doctors to prescribe experimental treatments that haven't been approved for sale by regulators.
FDA Chief and Vaping Opponent Scott Gottlieb Is Leaving the Food and Drug Administration
When and wherever public health conflicted with personal freedom, Gottlieb advocated for the former.
Sen. Warren Has a Plan to Socialize Pharmaceuticals: Reason Roundup
Plus: Tumblr porn filters catch company's own examples of permitted content and how the GOP learned to love bailouts.
Drug Companies, Scared of Regulation, Inch Toward Price Transparency
"Our vision for a new, more transparent drug-pricing system does not rely on voluntary action," says HHS Secretary Alex Azar.
Sears Is Filing for Bankruptcy Because Capitalism Has Given Us Better Options: Reason Roundup
Plus: Parkour robots, price transparency for drugs, and Hillary Clinton defending Bill over the Lewinsky affair
There Is No Such Thing as a Free Pharma Lunch (Anymore)
Initiatives to curb drug-maker influence have endangered medical workers, patients, and the healthcare system.
Expect Fully Legal Weed Within 5 Years, Says Former Top Pharma Lobbyist and Congressman Billy Tauzin
He has been a Democrat, a Republican, a lobbyist, and a cancer survivor. Now he wants to end the war on weed.
A 'Right to Try' Bill Is Finally Heading to Trump's Desk
It's still not clear whether pharmaceutical companies will work with patients outside the FDA's supervision.
Is Trump Just Doing the Crazy Things Republicans Always Promised?: Podcast
From ripping families apart to nominating a torture-enabler as CIA director, the administration is calling the GOP's bluff, Reason editors argue.
President Trump: Competition Is the Solution to High Drug Prices
Change drug prices by changing the market.
Scott Gottlieb Is Not a Free Market Firebrand
The FDA chief's mixed, moderate record has surprised both his champions and his critics.
Trump and Trial Lawyers Target Drug Companies Over Opioid Addiction
Making drug-company shareholders foot the bill for a public health crisis is flaky and counterproductive.
Right To Try Laws Are a Fine Start. Comprehensive Reform of the FDA's Drug Trials Would Be Better.
The drug regulator's clinical trials process for approving drugs needs a complete overhaul.
D.C. Deregulates Birth Control…and Dooms It With Obamacare Add-Ons
The change would put D.C. in line with a rapidly rising number of states allowing pharmacist-prescribed oral contraceptives.
Misdiagnosing Causes and Casualties in the Opioid War [Corrected]
Do the pain relief benefits of prescription opioids outweigh their addiction risks?
California Enacts Likely Ineffective Drug Price Transparency Law
What will really keep drug (and any other) prices lower? Competition.
Mayor Bill de Blasio: The Perfect Ayn Rand Villain [Podcast]
Reason editors talk immigration, affirmative action, and why the "Pharma Bro" witch hunt should concern everyone.
Will All Seriously Ill Americans Be Granted the 'Right to Try' Experimental Meds?
Senate approves bill giving some earlier access to treatment.
Deregulation and Market Forces Can Lower Pharmaceutical Prices
The pharmaceutical market is anything but free at present.
The FDA Commissioner's Novel Plan for Cutting Drug Prices: Competition
Make pharmaceutical competition great again.
EpiPen Not Overpriced, Despite New York Times Complaint
Contrary to what The New York Times claims, the outcry over EpiPen prices has made them lower.
Scott Gottlieb Confirmed as New FDA Commissioner
Not a radical reformer, but clearly understands how overregulation is slowing medical innovation
Scott Gottlieb: Trump's Nominee for Food and Drug Administration Commissioner
Understands how over-regulation is slowing down innovation in medicines and foods
President Trump: Pharmaceutical Price Controls Are a Bad Idea
Americans would save some money now, but at the long-run cost of sicker and shorter lives
Trump and Medicare Drug Price Controls: New at Reason
The unintended consequences to Americans' lives and health would be substantial and bad
Trump and How to Speed Up FDA Regulatory Approvals
Slashing the restraints on the agency's slow and burdensome process.
How Idaho's Drug Warriors Stole Hope from Epileptic Kids
A Reason investigation uncovers how cops, prosecutors, and lobbyists conspired to restrict a promising cannabis-derived seizure treatment.
Pill-Induced Abortions on the Rise in America. Why That's a Good Thing
At Planned Parenthood clinics, 43 percent of all abortions are now drug-induced, not surgical.
Opioid Maker Donates to Help Halt Marijuana Legalization in Arizona
As if fentanyl's public relations aren't bad enough.
Broken Science
What happens when cancer doctors, psychologists, and drug developers can't rely on each other's research?