We talk a lot about Big Pharma throughout this podcast but today we discuss its many tentacles. Soon after making the podcast, Alan watched a hockey game and there was a drug ad on the ice! The Pharma industry controls virtually all medical research; subsidizes medical schools whose "expert" physicians are dependent on Pharma funds to pay for their grants; finances and provides leadership for many respected institutions such as the FDA, CDC, American Diabetes Association, Alzheimer's Association, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and virtually every medical professional society; is one of the biggest doners and lobbyists in Congress; is (with Big Food) the top advertiser in the media, print, TV, and internet; is the biggest advertiser in medical journals and medical conferences; and of course regularly bribes doctors. We speak a lot about these tentacles in our book Return to Healing, as does Gardiner Harris in his book No More Tears, as do so many health reformers, but the deep penetration of their financial power to manipulate our perception of what healthcare should be has become so normalized as to make it invisible. Few doctors realize that the protocols they use, the calculators they dazzle patients with, the articles they read, the conferences they attend, the organizations they follow, and the "experts" they listen to are all tentacles of Big Pharma. And of course, since Medicare is contingent on Congress to determine what it will pay for, and since Congresspeople are heavily supported by generous Pharma gifts, it's no wonder that the most expensive drugs are always passed by the FDA, endorsed by the CDC, and paid for by Medicare. We will give a brief synopsis of this problem and a few ideas how to fix it.