Bad People - 70. Pharma Bro 2: Why do we hate?

70. Pharma Bro 2: Why do we hate?

Download 70. Pharma Bro 2: Why do we hate?

In September 2015, Martin Shkreli quickly became ‘the most hated man in America’ after he raised the price of the life-saving drug, Daraprim, by more than 4,000% - almost overnight.

Instead of apologising or hiding away, Shkreli decided to lean into his villain image, with even more media appearances and antagonising acts. In an interview with The Hustle magazine, Shkreli was quoted as saying: “People want a villain,” “If people derive some psychological benefit from that, then I don’t want to deprive them of it. I’ll be your villain.”

Shkreli lied with regularity, harassed female journalists and even took on the Wu-Tang Clan. At his securities fraud trial almost 200 jurors were ‘excused’ during jury selection because as one juror said: “The only thing I’d be impartial about is what prison this guy goes to.”

In part two, Dr Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen discuss the latest research on ‘hate’. Why do we hate? Whom do we hate? And can one love to be hated? They also talk about jury selection and whether it is ever possible to have a completely unbiased jury.

CREDITS
Presenters: Dr Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen
Producer: Simona Rata
Music: Matt Chandler
Editor: Anna Lacey
#BadPeople_BBC
Commissioning Assistant Producer: Adam Eland
Commissioning Executive: Dylan Haskins
Bad People is produced in partnership with The Open University and is a BBC Audio Science Production for BBC Sounds.

Published on Thursday, 18th August 2022.

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