Dear AWA,

I want you to know how much I enjoy the show you folks put together every week.

I was pleased that you took on the vaccine controversy. There have been people in my life who believed the autism canard and I found it impossible to reason with them. It clearly had taken on the flavor of a religious belief…intractable, highly emotional. And these were otherwise intelligent, educated people.

I’m writing because I think you came up short in your discussion of why these attitudes exist. The doctor from Philadelphia waved away Molly’s question about peoples’ distrust of Big Pharma. I found his non-answer unsatisfactory.

I recently read a book called Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs by Melody Peterson, a former NYT reporter. I was unprepared for her revelations of the depth of corruption both in big pharma and, especially, within the medical community.Things are rotten indeed…and not just in Denmark. You would do a real service to bring this information to the attention of your listeners.

Thank you for all the work it takes to put together such a fine show week after week.

Bill Morancy
Montpelier, Vermont