Welcome back to The Dream.

I'm Jane Marie.

Today, we're going to replay an episode from our second season of this show, where we talked about wellness and conspiracy theories in wellness.

Yesterday's guest, Anna Merlin, does a lot of reporting in that space.

And even five years ago, she kind of knew what was coming.

Yeah. years ago, she kind of knew what was coming. Here in the U.S., we have a long and storied history of big pharma in the medical industrial

complex and the government defrauding citizens.

Take this recent example.

So you know how when you go to the doctor nowadays, they take a seat at a

computer and pull up your records? Those programs you see on the screen always look kind of clunky,

to me, but someone designed them precisely for the purpose of tracking your health information

for your doctor and insurance companies. One of those companies that designs the software that keeps track of all your health data

got busted by the U.S. District Attorney's Office of Vermont for conspiring with an opioid manufacturer.

Here's how the scam played out. Say you go in for back pain. Your doctor can ask you to rate the pain,

ask about other symptoms, et cetera., bleep, bleep,

blip, lorpe, they enter it into the computer program, and the program spits out possible treatments,

maybe physical therapy or ibuprofen, rest, heat packs, ice, or drugs. Well, in this scheme,

not only did the drug company offer kickbacks to the software company to list its

opiates in the menu of choices, the software company also let the drug company come in and help them

design the program. You know, help them choose what ailments, what criteria would trigger a suggestion

to prescribe their drug. They were fined $145 million.

Or how about all the syphilis studies done on people without their permission,

...