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So today I'm really excited to be joined by author and independent journalist Alexander Zichick

to talk about his brand new book that was just released at the beginning of March by a counterpoint press

called Owning the Sun, a People's History of Monopoly Medicine from aspirin to COVID-19.

Alex, welcome back to the death panel. It's so great to have you on the show again.

Awesome to be back. Thanks for having me.

So long-time listeners may remember when we had you on in the summer of 2021 to talk about the

reporting that you had been doing about vaccine and pharmaceutical

intellectual property regimes and the history and dynamics behind this sort of still

ongoing debate over whether or not to allow COVID-19 vaccine technology transfer.

And the truly sad thing is that where we stand today, the trips waiver proposal honestly has not gone much of

anywhere in the last 10 months since you and I spoke. If anything, it's gotten worse with the United

States now trying to move to exclude India and South Africa, the two countries that had been

pushing for the trips waiver from any sort of a trips waiver going forward. So, you know, pharmaceutical intellectual property is a topic that is

really important to us here on death panel. And the last time you were on, you talked to us a little

bit about the book that you were at the time still writing. So I'm so glad to have you back on finally

to talk about your book now that it's out, Alex, which again is called Owning the Sun.

It's really a people's history of monopoly medicine that traces not just how the industry develops and refines its practices throughout the 20th century in particular, you know, sort of just making overwhelming scientific progress in a very short time, but also

how that progress came to be commodified in the very peculiar and exclusionary way that it has.

In our current context, as we've, you know, discussed the last time you're on the show, you

know, if you believe what the industry says about itself, then the only reason that we've

seen these advances is because of

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