‘Exactly. And some of the things you’re prescribed have extremely low efficacy, as you found out. The bar of proof for a drug to be approved for any condition is so low as to be pretty much meaningless; placebo is about as effective. But no one tells you that. They dress everything up in complicated trial data and routinely ignore studies which didn’t have the outcomes they want because they need to make money. But it doesn’t stop there. Once they have drugs approved they’re forever lobbying to have the criteria for prescription lowered to widen their potential market. All damaging side effects people report are pretty much swept under the carpet as being statistical anomalies, until the thirty years on their patent is starting to run out. Then they start crafting a narrative where the odd study shows that Drug A wasn’t quite as effective as previously thought. More and more of those build up until a few years before the patent finally expires and they release Drug B, which is significantly better than Drug A. Look at aspirin, hailed as a wonder drug, prescribed liberally for pretty much anything, then demonized when the patent was up and they introduced paracetamol. Paracetamol was much safer, they said; aspirin was really bad. Only now there are studies starting to creep out which show that in actual fact paracetamol is far worse than aspirin, and causes all sorts of damage to the liver. So, yeah, maybe at first I thought I was being paranoid, but I saw enough evidence, over and over, that this is exactly how they operate.’

I take a few moments to try and absorb it all.

‘If this is all true, then how come no one else has brought it to light?’

Joel does his best Really? Are you serious? face.

‘People’ve tried, believe me. But they’re always silenced somehow. We’re talking a multibillion-euro industry here; they can buy whatever they want. They’ll rake up stuff from your past to discredit you. If you’re a doctor, they’ll find an old patient who “remembers” you touching them inappropriately. If you’re an ex-employee, they’ll come at you with whatever they can, threaten you with whatever they think will make you back down. People have had their kids watched, and some woke up to find dead animals on their doorsteps. And the thing is, you’ve been poking around, and then your houseboat mysteriously gets torched. How many arson cases do you get a year in central Amsterdam?’