THE MORNING SHOW
with
Patrick Timpone
Gwen Olsen
Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher
On December 2, 2004, Gwen Olsen’s niece Megan committed suicide by setting herself on fire-and ended her tortured life as a victim of the adverse effects of prescription drugs. Olsen’s journey through the darkness of mental illness and the catastrophic consequences that lurk in medicine cabinets around the country offers an honest glimpse into alarming statistics and a health care system ranked last among nineteen industrialized nations worldwide. As a former sales representative in the pharmaceutical industry for several years, Olsen learned firsthand how an unprecedented number of lethal drugs are unleashed in the United States market, but her most heartrending education into the dangers of antidepressants would come as a victim and ultimately, as a survivor.
A fifteen-year-veteran pharmaceutical rep from 1985 – 2000, Gwen worked for McNeil Pharmaceutical, Syntex Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott Labs and Forest Laboratories. She was a hospital rep and specialist rep for the majority of her career, educating residents in hospital teaching settings and selling prescription drugs to doctors in obstetrics and gynecology, orthopedics, cardiology, neurology, endocrinology and psychiatry.
Gwen has a unique industry insider’s perspective of the current U.S. healthcare dilemma, and utilizes both her experience and the insight she received in her extensive sales training with Pharma to illuminate marketing trends and illustrate how current greed and conflicts of interest make the system itself the biggest health risk to American consumers.
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gwen olson and confessions of a rx drug pusher, april 14, 2015
'Gwen Olsen – Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher – April 14, 2015' have 2 comments
April 15, 2015 @ 3:45 pm Stacy
Informative show.
June 25, 2017 @ 10:09 am Victim
I listened to Gwen on that series “America’s War on Drugs” and it was very informative; however, a lot has been left out on these issues. Medications, such as OxyContin, were pushed on patients as being non-addictive, harmless, and that opiates had been mis-thought for 100+ years. The idea that this and other medications of the opioid type weren’t just good for pain but for other conditions as well, including depression, was presented to patients by a high-ranking, high-teaching-university-level doctor who was a professor, researcher and held himself out to be head of neurology, who was and remains highly responsible for the opiate epidemic and is untouchable. It’s important to know that other physicians, such as psychiatrists and physiatrists were involved and presenting that “philosophy” as well. The independent medical experts (IME) were used by some in the personal injury medical community because of their “enlightened” prescribing philosophy thus increasing damage awards for pain and suffering. This type of doctor has the protection of the legal community in general and is untouchable as well. The “enlightened” philosophy of the late ’90s and onward was reinforced by pharmacists and sadly to say even the pharmacy departments in health insurance companies, In at least one case the university professor//researcher/head of neurology had a direct link with doctor William Hurwitz when Dr. Hurwitz was having legal problems, even taking Hurwitz’s patients, according to that top-level university doctor. Victims were mislead and were left with permanently broken pain receptors, unable to have children or to feel pain the way the average person does. Injury upon injury that they weren’t feeling also reveal themselves. The whole thing that Gwen Olsen speaks of has many, many tangents. It is important to note this kind of physician, as well as any medical entity. who thinks they could even possibly have liability will have their risk management divisions do absolutely anything to protect themselves. Falsifying medical records, urine test results and the extent of injuries, etc. appears to be common place. Their objective? To drag their victims through the mud, victimize them further, to avoid liability and discredit them along with the truth. As I said, there are many, many tangents that caused and continued the “opiate epidemic”. I for one have seen the dirty underbelly of this medical crisis and I don’t know what to do about it. You can’t un-see it and the doctors and medical entities worth close to a billion dollars are impossible to resist or expose. Gwen, I hope you look into this aspect of the issues surrounding opiates and chronic pain which these old and broken-down victims that are already outside any existing parameters of medication research and pain treatment must live in. Remember, the doctors and other med entities are so good at manipulating perception that it can’t be used as in the expression “perception is reality”. Thank you for your work.