There was an interesting post this morning from Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink. In it he chronicles the way the New York Times (the New York Times, not the Post) sensationalizes what it calls the "sharp" rise in drug prices. But citing an AARP study, it only mentions name brand drugs! The evidence in the same study shows that generic drug prices (which are far more prescribed) actually fell! But no mention of that in in the Times. The truth is, when you take it all together, across all of the drugs prescribed, drug prices have actually fallen a little. But that’s just no fun to write about, I suppose.

I’ve written before about the villainization of drug companies, and what I think is a sometimes skewed perspective about the price of healthcare, but what is so disturbing about this is that it is such an accepted premise (that drug companies are bad and that prices are out of control) that the Times felt no obligation to report the whole story. They only report what syncs with their worldview. Everyone’s worldview. And so it continues. Most folks read the Times story, not the AARP study. And so the conversation tonight is about the shocking rise in drug prices and what to do about it.

Even though it’s not true.