In his new book, “No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson,” Gardiner Harris, who was previously the public health and pharmaceutical business reporter for The New York Times, talks about the history of the overuse of red blood cell growth factors in oncology. 

In conversation with The Cancer Letter editor and publisher Paul Goldberg, Harris and Goldberg discuss their parallel coverage of ESAs—erythropoiesis-stimulating agents.

Harris’s book, released last April, is a New York Times bestseller. 

“EPO is the largest cancer drug disaster in American history. There is no one who was more important in revealing that disaster than Paul Goldberg,” Harris said.

Goldberg and Harris go way back. “Just by way of disclosure, Gardiner and I had regular lunches at the Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown for most of the time that Gardiner was in Washington,” Goldberg said.

Goldberg and Harris tell the story about how this class of drugs was approved, aggressively marketed in oncology, and widely used in ways not supported by data. As sales of these products reached record-setting levels, data started to show that overprescribing was causing harm to cancer patients. 

As data emerged (in part as a result of reporting by Harris and Goldberg), FDA stepped in with black box warnings and a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy. It’s a complicated story with many moving parts, and in this episode Goldberg and Harris spar over who knew what when, what could have been done better, and what has been learned.

A transcript of this podcast is available: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20250827-gardiner-harris/