Owning the Sun, Alexander Zaitchik
Owning the Sun, Alexander Zaitchik
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Owning the Sun
A People's History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19 Vaccines

Author: Alexander Zaitchik

Narrator: Johnny Heller

Unabridged: 9 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/15/2022

Synopsis

Owning the Sun tells the story of one of the most contentious fights in human history: the legal right to control the production of lifesaving medicines. Medical science began as a discipline geared toward the betterment of all human life, but the merging of research with intellectual property and the rise of the pharmaceutical industry warped and eventually undermined its ethical foundations. Why does the US government fund the development of medical science in the name of the public, only to relinquish exclusive rights to drug companies, and how does such a system impoverish us, weaken our responses to global crises, and, as in the case of AIDS and COVID-19, put the world at risk?

Outlining how generations of public health and science advocates have attempted to hold the line against Big Pharma and their allies in government, Alexander Zaitchik's first-in-kind history documents the rise of medical monopoly in the United States and its subsequent globalization. From the controversial arrival of patent-wielding German drug firms in the late nineteenth century, to present-day coordination between industry and philanthropic organizations—including the influential Gates Foundation—that stymie international efforts to vaccinate the world against COVID-19, Owning the Sun tells one of the most important and least understood histories of our time.

About Alexander Zaitchik

Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist. His writing has appeared in the Nation, the New Republic, the Intercept, the Guardian, Rolling Stone, Foreign Policy, VICE, and the Baffler, among many other publications. Owning the Sun is his third book. He lives in New Orleans.

Reviews

Goodreads review by David on February 26, 2022

It is not bad enough that meds cost a lot. Or that they mysteriously cost more in the USA than anywhere else, despite being Proudly Made in USA. Drugmakers have managed to turn laws, justice, healthcare, trade agreements and even foreign policy upside down for their own benefit. The constitution, fr......more

Goodreads review by J Earl on December 16, 2021

Owning the Sun is probably more of a 4-star book in most respects but the importance and timeliness of it bumps it up to a 5 for me. This is not a book of ranting and raving, or even just a book about the moral bankruptcy of monopoly medicine and big pharma. This is a detailed history with the dots......more

Goodreads review by Casey (ish-i-ness) on December 25, 2022

Great explanation of the history of patents and monopolies in the United States. Obviously the focus is on pharmaceuticals but a lot of the information applies to anything. I don’t how how you could read this book and think our current system should continue. All of this needs to be dismantled. But......more

Goodreads review by Raphael on June 29, 2022

I just finished Owning the Sun by Alex Zaitchik. It is an amazing accomplishment of research, organization, and writing skills. The book covers a staggering span of U.S. history, some 244 years. It documents the evolution of U.S. and Western world policy with regard to two separate but interrelated i......more

Goodreads review by Dale on May 09, 2023

A dense, well researched assault on the patent system as it currently stand. Mr Zaitchik clearly lays out the path that the current drug industry evolved to be both creator and owner of knowledge, even if that knowledge is built on the research of the past.. I felt that some of the information neede......more

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