Bust Big Pharma

E12 | Why Is Big Pharma Losing Ground in Every State This Consultant Visited? | Guest: Corey Stevens

The Bust Big Pharma bus tour has now crossed more than 30 states, done hundreds of events, and collected enough petition signatures and engagement data to identify exactly which Senate races Big Pharma is most vulnerable in. The man who ran the ground operation for the 2025 tour knows exactly what that looked like from the inside. In Episode 12, Rob sits down with Corey Stevens — former National Field Director for Americans for Pharma Reform — to talk about what happens when you take this issue directly to the American people. Town halls in rural New Mexico. 180 people showing up in a Texas border town. An elderly couple in Michigan asking for a bucket of stress ball remotes because they're fed up with pharma ads on their TV. Corey breaks down what he saw on the ground, what it told him about the 2026 map, and what he's telling his candidates right now. In this episode: * What it looks like when 200 people who agree on nothing else agree passionately on one thing: Big Pharma is ripping them off * How the bus tour identified Bill Cassidy as a red flag — months before Louisiana voters sent him home * Why Ken Paxton winning in Texas is not a coincidence — it's a pattern * The difference between political capital and voter currency, and why pharma can't buy the second one * What down-ballot candidates — city council, state rep, state senate — can start saying right now to make drug pricing a local issue * Why pharma's DTC advertising jingles are targeting the next generation of patients — and what that means for families * How engagement data from petition signatures, QR scans, and event turnout functions as a heat map for where the reform movement goes next * The Michigan moment: one elderly couple, a bucket of stress ball remotes, and what it tells you about where this movement is headed The bottom line: Big Pharma has $450 million in lobbying. AFPR has a bus, a petition, and a growing list of voters who are fed up. Corey Stevens spent 2025 crossing the country collecting proof that the second thing is more powerful than the first. 🔔 New episodes every week — subscribe so you don't miss one. 🌐 Get involved at BustBigPharma.com #DrugPricing #HealthcareReform #BigPharmaExposed #PharmaGreed #CorruptionWatch

E11 | Five States. Five Races. Zero Safe Seats for Big Pharma.

Last week, Ken Paxton won the Republican Senate primary runoff in Texas. He beat John Cornyn — six-term incumbent, former Senate majority whip, the establishment's choice — because Texas Republican primary voters chose the candidate who had sued Big Pharma. Multiple times. Using words like "illegal" and "bribe." The week before that, Bill Cassidy lost in Louisiana. In Episode 11, Rob Burgess connects those two results to four other Senate races unfolding right now — and shows you exactly what to do with the information. Texas. Ohio. Georgia. Colorado. New Jersey. In every one of these races, pharmaceutical accountability has emerged as a defining issue. Rob examines each one honestly — the legislative records, the contribution histories, the rhetorical commitments versus the documented actions — and closes with three specific questions every voter should be asking their Senate candidates before November. In this episode: * Ken Paxton's actual record against Big Pharma: the Eli Lilly lawsuit, the February kickback lawsuit, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb — lawsuits, not press releases * The Texas Democratic nominee ran on pharmaceutical accountability too. Both candidates in the Texas Senate race are running against Big Pharma. * Ohio: Sherrod Brown's legislative record on drug pricing, his $1.4 million in pharmaceutical contributions, and the question this show asks regardless of party * Georgia: Jon Ossoff passed two laws. The Inflation Reduction Act delivered 38-79% price reductions on ten drugs. That's not a campaign ad — it's a result. * New Jersey: Cory Booker, pharmaceutical industry concentration, and what returning donations actually means * Colorado: The accountability argument is now penetrating Democratic primaries — the same dynamic that ended Cassidy's career in a Republican primary * 91% of Republican voters, 70% of independents, 64% of Democrats support MFN codification. The primaries are starting to reflect it. * Three questions to ask every Senate candidate before you vote — with specific answers that separate a record from a talking point The bottom line: The pharmaceutical industry cannot lobby every voter. It can lobby every senator. Your job is to create senators the lobby cannot own. 🔔 New episodes every week — subscribe so you don't miss one. 🌐 Get involved at BustBigPharma.com #DrugPricing #HealthcareReform #BigPharmaExposed #PharmaGreed #CorruptionWatch

E10 | The Senator Who Protected Big Pharma Just Lost His Primary. Who's Next?

On May 16th, Bill Cassidy — Chairman of the Senate Health Committee and the top Republican recipient of pharmaceutical money in the 2024 cycle — came in third in his own Republican primary. A senator who took over $1 million from Big Pharma, blocked a fast-track MFN vote, and killed his own codification bill before it ever got a hearing was sent home by the voters of Louisiana. In Episode 10, Rob Burgess uses that result as the opening argument — and then spends the rest of the episode dismantling every major industry argument standing between American patients and drug pricing reform. The innovation argument. The China argument. The supply chain argument. The price controls argument. One by one, on the merits, with the data. And then: what TrumpRx actually is, what it isn't, why the industry cooperates with it, and why MFN codification is the bill they're spending $450 million a year to prevent from ever coming due. In this episode: * Bill Cassidy: $1 million from Big Pharma, blocked MFN, killed his own bill — then lost his primary * 89% of Republican voters support MFN codification. $600 billion in projected patient savings. Why it still hasn't passed. * The innovation argument, run through 2025 financial data: $5.9 billion cut from research, $97 billion returned to shareholders, $9 billion on advertising * The China argument exposed: the same industry warning Congress about Chinese competition spent $137 billion funding pharmaceutical development inside China * The supply chain argument: the industry that offshored API manufacturing for 40 years to maximize margins is now lecturing Congress about supply chain security * The price controls argument: why MFN pricing is not socialism, it's the deal every other developed nation already has * TrumpRx: what it is, who it helps, why the industry cooperates with it, and why it doesn't threaten the pricing architecture that matters * The empty chair: why the next Senate Health Committee chairman determines whether MFN becomes permanent law or stays a voluntary program pharma can ignore * The conservative case for drug pricing accountability — markets, America First, and cronyism vs. capitalism The bottom line: The industry's math has always been about money. The reform movement's math is about votes. The votes won — in Louisiana, on a Saturday night. Every member of Congress sitting on pharmaceutical contributions should be doing the same math right now. 🔔 New episodes every week — subscribe so you don't miss one. 🌐 Get involved at BustBigPharma.com #DrugPricing #HealthcareReform #BigPharmaExposed #PharmaGreed #CorruptionWatch

REPLAY | Your Prescription Comes With A Movie Budget | Guest: Chris Faulkner

Big Pharma has so much money, they don't just buy politicians — they rent both parties. That's not a conspiracy theory. That's a quote from RFK Jr., and it's exactly what Republican strategist Chris Faulkner breaks down in this episode of Bust Big Pharma. This week's episode is a replay of a previous episode where Rob Burgess sat down with Chris — a veteran political consultant who joined the Bust Big Pharma bus tour across the Southeast — to talk about why Congress won't act on drug pricing, what the 2026 midterms mean for pharma reform, and how everyday Americans can actually move the needle, because in May of 2026, this conversation matters more than ever before. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week. 🌐 Learn more at BustBigPharma.com 📧 Seen a news story pharma doesn't want covered? Email us: truth@bustbigpharma.com [truth@bustbigpharma.com]

E9 | Why Are Pharma CEOs Getting Record Raises While Scientists Get Laid Off?

In 2025, AbbVie cut its research and development budget by 29% — the steepest R&D cut of any major pharmaceutical company that year. In the same year, AbbVie's CEO received a 75% pay raise, bringing his total compensation to $32.5 million. Same company. Same year. Same pool of capital. That's where Episode 9 starts. And it only gets more specific from there. Rob Burgess follows the money through the full 2025 financial picture for the 16 largest pharmaceutical companies — the advertising budgets, the executive compensation structures, the shareholder returns, the R&D cuts, and the 22,000 jobs eliminated — and then audits the decade of leadership at PhRMA, the industry's most powerful lobbying organization, that produced these numbers. Every argument the industry makes in defense of its behavior gets examined against the data. None of them hold. In this episode: * AbbVie: 75% CEO pay raise, 29% R&D cut, workers laid off — all in the same year * The 16 largest pharma companies combined cut $5.9 billion from research in 2025 while returning $97 billion to shareholders * $9 billion in direct-to-consumer advertising in 2025 — up from $6 billion in 2020 — and how the 1997 FDA rule change made it all possible * Why Trump's September 2025 executive order on misleading drug ads and the FDA's enforcement crackdown are the right moves — and why the rulemaking needs to be codified into law * How equity-based CEO compensation is structurally designed to reward price increases over research investment * A decade-long audit of PhRMA's leadership: $305 million in lobbying, drug spending up 60%, advertising tripled, the revolving door kept spinning * The four industry arguments for high prices, examined one by one against 2025 data * Three reforms that would change the system's incentives without telling a single company to stop innovating The bottom line: The innovation argument is not a fact. It's a cover story. The financial filings say so. A decade of data says so. AbbVie says so with every allocation decision it made in 2025. 🔔 New episodes every week — subscribe so you don't miss one. 🌐 Get involved at BustBigPharma.com #DrugPricing #HealthcareReform #BigPharmaExposed #PharmaGreed #CorruptionWatch