Jeanne Lenzer is an award-winning independent medical investigative journalist and author
Regular contributor and former associate editor of a leading medical journal, Th BMJ, her hard-hitting investigations and analyses have appeared in outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, the Atlantic, Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Scientific American, and Discover.
Her first book, The Danger Within Us: America's Untested, Unregulated Medical Device Industry and One Man's Battle to Survive It, explores themes that have been at the heart of Lenzer's work over the past three decades: the intersection of money and medicine and how profiteering distorts medical science and undermines the public health, often by gaming or misrepresenting research to obtain a desired outcome.
See Jerome Groopman’s April 2020 review of The Danger Within Us here
Her investigations have revealed hidden financial ties between industry and public institutions, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. In each instance, she documented flawed scientific recommendations that serve to protect profits over public health. Examples include the CDC's recommendation for oseltamivir (Roche, Tamiflu), a campaign that was paid for by Roche; and the FDA's approval of drugs over the (sometimes unanimous) recommendations of their own scientists - after being contacted by politicians beholden to manufacturers.