375. MY GREAT FRIEND MARTHA ROSENBERG’S INCREDIBLE LIFE (X-RATED)

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The Rumble video version of this post.

Introduction

Here are Martha Rosenberg’s books on Amazon:

She also has over 800 articles about the pharmaceutical industry, appearing in venues such as Prevention, Epoch Times, Huffington Post, British Medical Journal, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, National Geographic, and Wikipedia.

I read Martha’s writing about big Pharma a few years ago, then stalked her online for six months until I got a response. I discovered a delightful person who soon became a mentor and friend. I met her in person when I attended Wendy Dolin’s charity event in Chicago. Her group, MISSD.co, raises awareness of the common, possibly universal, brain damage that psych drugs produce.

Martha has had quite a ride. Her father was another whistleblower, and his suicide two decades ago radicalized her. I had a similar experience that bonded us—a few years earlier, I found my brother after he had hanged himself. Martha and I also wrote books about closely related topics, one after the other, and mine referenced hers.

Martha’s greatest strength is her sense of humor. A few years ago, she sent me this:

Martha recently illustrated and helped write Diary of a High Risk Lifestyle (2025), which Kaye Buckingham wrote about the lives of prostitutes and their clients. They have unsatisfying relationships, but the stories are remarkable and unending.

It is presented in the form of cartoons and commentary, and I was fascinated by it, reading it in one sitting. It is hilarious and tragic at the same time. Some excerpts appear below.

Recently, Martha had a brush with death due to the Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. This is a brain disorder caused by thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency, generally associated with chronic alcohol misuse and nutritional deficiency. When I was working in emergency rooms as a young doctor, it was commonly recognized and treated with intravenous vitamins, but these days it is mainly ignored. Martha’s “providers” did not figure her out until it was nearly too late.

Martha could not walk for months and was out of her mind. Fortunately, an angel touched her, and she survived, thrived, and has not had a drop of alcohol since. When she called me recently, I realized that she had none of the memory problems that some of these people get. I have been unable to convince Martha to abandon her vegan ways entirely, but I think she now occasionally eats an egg.

Martha works many hours a week but has never been overly concerned with material possessions and lives with her parakeet in a small apartment in Chicago. She has published over 800 articles on Pharma and related subjects and has somehow managed to live on the income from this.

Martha Rosenberg speaks about her life: interview summary

I am a medical investigative reporter who has published over 800 articles exposing pharmaceutical industry practices. My story encompasses surviving a life-threatening medical crisis that nearly killed me, documenting the harsh realities of street prostitution in Chicago, and spending decades investigating Big Pharma corruption. Through personal experience and extensive research, I have witnessed how economic incentives corrupt every level of the medical system.

My Near-Death Experience and Medical System Failures

I recently survived Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, a neurological condition caused by thiamine deficiency associated with alcohol abuse. The healthcare providers who treated me failed to diagnose my condition properly until I was nearly dead. Instead of giving me the nutritional therapies I needed, they prescribed psychiatric medications, including Haldol, Zyprexa, and phenobarbital, that made everything worse.

I could not walk for months and was so impaired that I could not take care of myself. The medical system treated me with profitable pharmaceutical interventions rather than addressing my actual nutritional deficiency. What I needed was nutrition and non-lucrative therapies, but doctors pushed psychiatric drugs.

I have been sober since that experience. Fortunately, I retained my memory and cognitive abilities, unlike many patients with similar diagnoses. My recovery involved rejecting the psychiatric medication approach that doctors pushed and focusing instead on nutritional support. I learned firsthand how the system fails patients who need simple, non-profitable treatments.

The Reality of Street Prostitution

I illustrated and helped publish Diary of a High-Risk Lifestyle by Kay Buckingham, documenting the experiences of street prostitutes in Chicago. My interest in this topic began fifteen years ago when Chicago experienced a surge of murders targeting street walkers. These women were drug addicts. They were getting into cars with strangers and were occasionally murdered. They were often out of touch with their families, and sometimes were not reported missing.

I became angry at the whitewashing that occurs around sex work. While some women work safely in penthouses, I focus on women who get in cars and risk death, arrest, rape, or drugs. These are my sisters – women who are underreported and often die without anyone writing their stories.

The book presents diary-style vignettes that show daily reality rather than a traditional autobiographical narrative. Kay Buckingham entered prostitution after a man in her apartment building masturbated on her boots and paid her for it. At the time, she was penniless and concluded it was easy money.

One woman told the Chicago Sun-Times that street prostitution was more addictive than heroin due to the adrenaline rush. She described the thrill as similar to a man holding up a 7-Eleven – you might get killed, but you might get money and drugs. That woman was murdered shortly later when a john (client) fired a gun into her mouth.

The stories included men who dropped payment money on the floor to humiliate women, others who talked on phones during services, and those who ran down women’s appearance to negotiate lower prices. Gang rape incidents can happen when prostitutes work with groups of intoxicated men. Kay describes submitting to rape, which she says is sex without getting paid, rather than risk a beating.

The book was from a time when prostitution was more hazardous. It was before AIDS awareness and internet-based sex work that made the scene safer. Besides brutality, some stories show humanity. Kaye had clients who brought Christmas presents, and one dying cancer patient just wanted to be held.

My Investigations into Pharmaceutical Industry Corruption

My pharmaceutical investigations began during my advertising career at McCann Erickson, where I learned marketing techniques that I later applied to medical contexts. This background and my medical knowledge made me cynical about medical and drug marketing. I developed my trademark observation: “When the medication is ready, the disease will appear.”

This reflects how pharmaceutical companies create markets for drugs by simultaneously manufacturing treatments and the conditions together. Drug companies sell products with the message, “You may have this disease.” If they make people afraid, they can sell them the drug.

I regularly interview pharmaceutical whistleblowers who risk their careers to expose industry practices. These people are heroes. One case involved salespeople instructed to promote an asthma drug for uses not described on the FDA label, which is against the law. When I published the story, Big Tech companies with pharmaceutical industry board members buried the coverage to protect industry profits and reputation.

I have been sued and threatened because the money is enormous. I joke about what they could do to me – take my parakeet? I read whistleblowers’ emails and write their stories, but I seldom get a fee for telling their stories.

An FDA pharmacologist who is a whistleblower revealed that his supervisors instructed reviewers not to read drug safety data and instead rubber-stamp approvals regardless of the evidence. He told me that the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is connected to mothers taking antipsychotic medications during pregnancy. Yoho: It is more closely linked to vaccines, yet the medical press continually drumbeats the absurd story that babies die because they are left on their backs.

The pharmaceutical industry has invaded addiction recovery programs, redefining alcoholics and drug addicts as having psychiatric disorders requiring medication. This breaks my heart because it monetizes previously free, effective programs like Alcoholics Anonymous by converting spiritual recovery into pharmaceutical dependency. I see people who were once alcoholics saying they are addicted, and are bipolar with a major depressive disorder. They are not; it is just Pharma trying to monetize an area that was not generating revenue.

Exposing Medical System Failures Across Specialties

I consider pediatrics the worst specialty due to aggressive vaccination schedules that damage children’s health. Pediatricians receive financial bonuses for maintaining high vaccination rates. They discharge families who refuse vaccines to keep their percentages high.

My grandfather was a dentist, and I worked as a chairside assistant, witnessing firsthand the exposure to mercury and the use of harmful procedures. We performed root canals using phenol, a carcinogen that should never be used near the body. Dentistry ranks as the second-worst medical specialty because root canals affect fifty percent of Americans and Europeans, creating chronic disease through persistent infections.

Psychiatry ranks third among the most damaging specialties, with twenty-five percent of Americans taking psychiatric medications. These drugs have never had proper double-blind controlled trials and create addiction rather than healing. I have written about the connection between psychiatric drugs and mass shootings, with most shooters using SSRI antidepressants that cause violence and suicide. This is well-documented but suppressed.

Medical education has been captured by pharmaceutical funding. Medical schools now feature “Pfizer hallways” and “Merck auditoriums.” Now, doctors seem to prescribe psychiatric medications for any problem.

I believe much road rage stems from psychiatric medications. With twenty-five percent of people taking these drugs, significant aberrant behavior is connected to SSRIs, atypical antipsychotics, and benzos. The polypharmacy problem means side effects from one medication trigger prescriptions for additional medicines, creating cascading pharmaceutical dependency.

My Current Work and Ongoing Revelations

I write MarthaRosenberg.Substack.com, where I expose pharmaceutical marketing practices while adding cartoons to make the depressing subject matter more bearable. My ongoing work reveals that pharmaceutical corruption has worsened since my early reporting.

Medical journals now openly publish drug company-funded research without skepticism, abandoning previous standards that questioned industry-sponsored studies. Television news stations receive substantial pharmaceutical advertising revenue, which prevents them from reporting negatively on drug companies. The purpose of these advertisements is not direct sales, but rather to bribe stations so they cannot take any action against the companies.

I have witnessed how economic incentives throughout the medical system prioritize profit over patient welfare. The healthcare system operates on selling diseases with the hope that people have conditions requiring expensive treatments. Companies face minimal consequences for causing deaths and injuries, as seen with drugs like Vioxx that killed tens of thousands before being removed from the market.

My experience spans multiple decades of medical corruption. My sources tell me stories about systematic cover-ups and data manipulation.

The transformation of medical practice from a focus on healing to one of sales is evident across every specialty. In cosmetic surgery, breast implants frequently cause illness that requires meticulous surgical removal. The system convinces people to use harmful substances like silicone implants despite their known toxicity.

My work continues because people deserve to know the truth about medical marketing and pharmaceutical manipulation. After decades of investigation, I learned that greedy companies market drugs before anyone knows their long-term safety. Patients become guinea pigs for profitable experiments rather than receiving healthcare.

The solution lies in human relationships, love, and community rather than pharmaceutical interventions. The answer is hugs, not drugs. People, loving family, and loving friends make the most difference in healing and recovery.

My message is: question medical authority, demand evidence, and remember that the way the system works is that when the medication is ready, the disease will appear. It is a sales operation rather than a healing profession, and patients must protect themselves through knowledge and skepticism.

You can buy Diary of a High-Risk Lifestyle HERE. If you would like to interview Martha, she can be reached at [email protected].

Editing credit: Jim Arnold of Liar’s World Substack.

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Appendix: Martha Rosenberg’s bio and full publication list:

Martha is a nationally recognized medical reporter. Her work has appeared in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Consumer Reports, Public Citizen, the Center for Health Journalism at USC Annenberg, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, and other top outlets. Rosenberg has authored over 1,000 scientific and non-scientific papers. Her work has been cited in publications such as the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Public Library of Science Biology, ScienceDirect, Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy, Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, Britannica, National Geographic, Hastings Law Journal, and Wikipedia. Rosenberg’s FDA expose, Born with a Junk Food Deficiency, was praised by the Public Library of Science, Library Journal, Reference & Research Book News, TLS, and Vice. It was recommended reading for Chicago’s One Book One Chicago reading program. She won a Northern Illinois Newspaper Association award in 2021 for humor appearing in the Evanston Round Table. Rosenberg has lectured at Northwestern and Cornell universities, Rush Medical School, and Mid-Manhattan and Harold Washington libraries. She has appeared on CSPAN and National Public Radio.

As a freelance reporter who specializes in health reporting, she has contributed to:

• Prevention

• The Los Angeles Times

• The Boston Globe

• The Chicago Tribune

• The Chicago Sun-Times

• The San Francisco Chronicle

• The Providence Journal

• The New Orleans Times-Picayune

• The Arizona Republic and Gazette

• Trial Lawyer magazine

• Huffington Post

• Dr. Kevin Pho (KevinMD.com)

• Salon

• Epoch Times

• Newsblaze

• Inside Publications (Chicago weeklies: Booster, Skyline, News-Star)

• Chicago Reader

• Today’s Chicago Woman

• Impact and Gambit (New Orleans weeklies)

• Organic Consumers Association

• Food Revolution

• Food Consumer

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