‘Power to the people’: A reply to Healy,Mangin,and Applbaum

Abstract

In challenging one portion of the history presented in my article, Healy et al. argue that Louis Lasagna was a ‘classical liberal’ who sought only to increase the scientific stature of the physician–patient encounter. They advance this interpretation to encourage science and technology studies scholars to heed Lasagna’s ideas about how to organize the medical marketplace. I argue that Healy et al. mischaracterize Lasagna’s ideas. I conclude with an example of these ideas being put into practice, Lasagna’s efforts on behalf of Wyeth in the approval and marketing of Redux and Fen-Phen.