About Drug Story
Diabetes. Anxiety. Insomnia. Heart disease. Food allergies. For every modern malady, there are drugs promising to fix it. So many drugs.
But they never really fix the problem, do they? Yes, drugs can help people manage their disease. They treat the symptoms. But they rarely remedy what caused the disease in the first place. And therein lies a story.
Drug Story is a podcast that tells the story of the disease business, one drug at a time. Each episode explores one disease and one drug. We explain the pros and cons of treating diseases with medications - and we show who makes money, along the way.
Medicine is complicated - and DRUG STORY tries to bring some meaning to the mess.
Drug Story explains why modern life makes us sick, and how drugs are prescribed as the not-quite-cure. This podcast asks the big question: What happens when we use drugs to mop up big problems?
About the Host
Thomas Goetz is an award-winning science journalist and author. He has won National Magazine Awards (print and digital), Webby Awards, and FDA contracts. The former Executive Editor at WIRED, he has worked at The Wall Street Journal, Inc., and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and has written two award-winning books about technology and medicine. His writing has been selected for the Best American Science Writing and the Best American Technology Writing anthologies. He spent much of the past decade developing digital tools to help people make sense of prescription medications, including leading the development of openFDA for the Food and Drug Administration, and building an economic research team and editorial operations at GoodRx.
Why subscribe?
Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.
Never miss an update—every new post is sent directly to your email inbox. For a spam-free, ad-free reading experience, plus audio and community features, get the Substack app.


