HIV and ID Observations

Several words swiftly come to mind when hearing the news that Turing’s Martin Shkreli was arrested for security fraud.

• Karma.
• Just desserts.
• Kismet.
• Schadenfreude.
• Inevitable.

But leave it to Andy Borowitz to get it just right:

Ha, that’s perfect.

Diana Olson from IDSA emailed me “Someone should make a movie …”, which is of course exactly right. What a script: You have the immigrant parent upbringing, the brilliant youth getting into an elite Manhattan high school, then dropping out and starting his “work” on Wall Street at age 20. So far so good.

Then the drug-pricing scandals, his utter refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing, the all-too public face (with a very recognizable smirk) during the controversy, the ubiquitous social media presence, that Wu-Tang Clan album purchase — and now this arrest! Who knows what’s next!

Let the record show that Joel Gallant, in this OFID podcast, was asked “In 10 years, where is Martin Shkreli?” and he presciently responded:

I’d say he’s either going to be in prison or he’s doing a short sale where he’s going to make huge profits off the decline in stock prices of his company and he’ll be on a yacht in the Mediterranean somewhere.

Right now, odds favor the former.

His rise and fall story would be gold, one I’m sure Hollywood will portray with great subtlety. It would certainly have the opposite message of Woody Allen’s later movies, which exist in a random, mostly unjust universe where bad guys often seem to get away with murder. Literally.

So who plays Shkreli in the movie about his life? I vote Bill Hader from Trainwreck — check him out around 1’30” into the clip below, the likeness is truly extraordinary.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MxnhBPoIx4&w=560&h=315]

And Amy, if you still need a writer, I’m still available.