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Emily Caplan
Christen Enos
First-Year Writing
January 23, 2017

Shkreli is Only the Beginning; a Rhetorical Analysis on Emails Released in the Turing

Overpricing Scandal

In recent years, certain pharmaceutical companies, like Turing and Mylan, have been in

the news for inflating prices of life saving drugs for personal gain. In the article Pharma Bro

Emails Reveal Just How Greedy Drug Companies Can Be, authors Jeffrey Young and Shane

Ferro write about the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, Martin Shkreli, and how he increased the

price of a life-saving drug by 5,000 percent last year. This Huffington Post article was published

the second of February, 2016, in light of new documents released including emails which Shkreli

sent talking about raising the price of Daraprim, a drug which treats a deadly parasitic infection

that afflicts HIV/AIDS patients. Young and Ferro use design, rhetorical appeals, and their

personas to not only inform the reader about the recently released emails, but also to convince

the audience to hate Martin Shkreli, and the pharmaceutical industry in the general.

Young and Ferros purpose in writing this article is to inform and update the readers

about the controversy surrounding Turing Pharmaceuticals and the infamous Pharma Bro,

while also using the issue of Turing to highlight the larger issue of the entire pharmaceutical

industry. These two purposes are emphasized in the articles title, Pharma Bro Emails Reveal

Just How Greedy Drug Companies Can Be. The first part, Pharma Bro Emails, relates to the

exigency of the article. It needed to be written to educate the public about Shkrelis emails,

released by Democrats on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. The title

and the timing make the purpose of informing obvious to the audience. The first line and the

largest quote in the article (9.5 font sizes bigger than the rest of the article), what the eye is
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drawn to, came directly from the released emails. The second part of purpose is also the second

part of the title How Greedy Drug Companies Can Be, which points to Young and Ferros

higher meaning with the article. Though the article seems purely informative about Shkreli when

skimmed, it is apparent the authors think poorly of the whole industry. After explaining how

Shkreli overpriced Daraprim, Young and Ferro state this kind of drug pricing strategy isnt

limited to one rogue executive or company. Though rarely quite so blatant, its woven throughout

the pharmaceutical industry. Proposing that Shkreli isnt the only one who reap[s] money

from life-saving drugs suggests that he is basically only the tip of the iceberg. The authors

choose to put in these two opinionated sentences in the middle of the news article which shows

the author's distaste for the industry and suggests they want the audience to dislike Shkreli and

the whole industry also. (Young and Ferro)

The personas of the authors in the article are informative to the reader yet belittling to

Pharma Bro, Martin Shkreli. One way the authors express their personas is through tone. In

The Huffington Post Article, the authors chose a change in tone when introducing "Turing

Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli, the infamous Pharma Bro.This change in tone contrasts

the respectable position of CEO with the nickname Pharma Bro, quickly changing the reader's

perception of Martin Shkreli from an important man to a teenage boy. While the article is an

informative one and its source reliable, the article is not completely formal like most news sites

are. When explaining why Turing raised the price of Daraprim, a life saving drug for some of

those with HIV/AIDS, the only reasoning the article gives is because it could. This language is

not the usual formal language associated with an informative news article, though it is obvious

that the writer's persona is shining through and adding the opinion that the company is doing this

because it [can], a kind of childish phrase which is used to accuse bad behavior. Another
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example of the author's use of language to belittle Shkreli is when referring to his plans to

invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The authors comment Thats not

stopping him, however, from mouthing off to reporters and on Twitter, or from attempting to pick

a fight with a prominent hip-hop artist. The choice of the words mouthing off, as opposed to

talking, speaking, or making his voice heard, is not only informal, but also shows the author's

hatred of Shkreli by using such harsh language to describe his actions. The persona of these

authors are reliable but definitely, like most that have heard of the story, disgusted by the abuse

by these large drug companies who are supposed to help their patients. (Young and Ferro)

From a design point of view, The Huffington Post uses images and links to help inform

the audience, but also uses the design to show the aforementioned personas of the authors,

criticizing Shkreli. The design emphasizes the immaturity of Shkreli, devaluing his work as a

CEO and focusing on his attitude problems. Starting with the image we see at the top of the

article, Shkreli is making a face one can only describe as smug. He does not look like a CEO but

rather young, boyish, and irresponsible. Seeing that the article addressed Shkreli as Pharma

Bro, there is some assumption of knowledge about him. A good amount of readers may know

how his face became an internet meme being made fun of for being so smug and exploiting those

who depend on Turing Pharmaceuticals for their lives. The Huffington Post, helps those who are

not as educated on the issue with hyperlinks which send the person who clicks to other articles

and documents which can help the reader become more informed. These hyperlinks, while

informative, are not without bias. When starting the article, Martin Shkreli is called the

infamous Pharma Bro, hyperlinked with an article called A Brief History Of Pharma Bro

Martin Shkrelis Most Despicable Moments. This article is also linked when referring to

Shkrelis notably outlandish and provocative behavior. These design elements show the
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author's personas because while neither an image nor a link can directly say that the authors hate

Shkreli, the context of the photo and the

article that the link sends you to are

subtle jabs which inform the reader, the

authors nor you should like Shkreli.

(Young and Ferro)

The Huffington Post does a

good job of capturing a young, liberal

audience through their informal tone and, in this article, their down with corporation mentality.

When looking at this article you do not only see the article itself but on the side bars you can see

trending news, advertisements, and recommendations. Trending on February 1, 2016 are articles

with titles like Sean Hannity Asked Twitter A Question. It Didnt Go Well, Plot Twist: James

Marsden Has A 15-Year-Old Son, And They Look Exactly Alike, and Sorry, TrumpYoure

Fired! The informal language of the Pharma Bro article is not just the style of Jeffrey Young

and Shane Ferro, it is all of Huffington Post. The informal language screams millennial and the

topics do too, twelve of the twenty one suggested articles were about Trump and all have a bias

against him.

To persuade the readers to believe that the drug industry is exploitative, the authors use

ethos and pathos to convince the reader through emotion and credibility. As mentioned before,

the first quote of the article comes from Shkreli, but the final quote comes from Mahmud

Hassan, the director of Rutgers Business Schools pharmaceutical management program.

Because of his knowledge of pharmaceuticals, Young and Ferro are using ethos to add

credibility. He explains a tradeoff, the high prices paid by Americans help fund
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pharmaceutical companies development of new drugs which they then sell around the

world. The final quote of a document is what the author wants to leave the reader with.

Finishing the article with a quote not directly related to Turing but just the drug industry itself

shows that Young and Ferro want to leave the reader knowing that the corruption is in more than

just Turing Pharmaceuticals. The authors use pathos when addressing the patients using this

drug. They touch the reader's emotions with using words like dangerous and deadly when

referring to the condition the sick have and use the adjective life-saving when referring to

Daraprim. Making the audience feel bad for the victims further demonizes Shkreli and the whole

industry is to blame about skyrocketing prices of these life-saving drugs. (Young and Ferro)

The over pricing of drugs in the pharmaceutical industry has been an ongoing issue which

can be addressed at any time but this article uses this new evidence the emails to attack the

industry as a whole. The article touches on not just Turing Pharmaceuticals but all drug

companies because it hopes to inform the reader on all drug companies hoping that even if

Turing's case does not see justice that other companies will (Young and Ferro). This hope came

to fruition just nine months later. An other overpricing controversy, this time involving the

EpiPen, another life saving drug but for those with severe allergies, was brought to light when it

was revealed the cost of an EpiPen had gone up to six times the asking price from just nine years

prior (Thomas). Mylan, the creator of EpiPen, settled the EpiPen overpricing case for $465

million after selling for over six times its original price that Mylan provided nine years prior

(Thomas). Now, with these two cases in the spotlight in 2016, the goals of the authors to educate

is achieved but with the skyrocketing prices of drugs patients and the public in general must be

informed about the corruption in the pharmaceuticals industry.

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The purpose of the article Pharma Bro Emails Reveal Just How Greedy Drug

Companies Can Be was to update the reader on the emails. The authors used the genre of news

to update the audience, but they seized the opportunity to use the Turing scandal to attack the

pharmaceutical industry as a whole through biased persona and criticizing tone. The design of

the article removes all power from Skreli and paints him as an emotional child which most likely

sits well with the largely young liberal audience who would not want to see a man like this

succeed. Finally, the authors agenda of condemning the drug industry is backed by the use of a

pharmaceutical professional appealing to ethos but also using pathos to make the reader

understand how terrible it is that Skreli is raising these prices. The authors larger message, of

pointing out the flaws in our pharmaceutical system, in writing this article is put across well, it

makes the readers think about how large corporations are exploiting unprotected customers.
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Works Cited

Thomas, Katie. "Mylan to Settle EpiPen Overpricing Case for $465 Million." The New York

Times. N.p., 07 Oct. 2016. Web. 23 Jan. 2017.

Young, Jeffrey, and Shane Ferro. "Pharma Bro Emails Reveal Just How Greedy Drug

Companies Can Be." The Huffington Post. N.p., 02 Feb. 2016. Web. 23 Jan. 2017.