Could the 2024 General Election (early voting begins October 15) lead to healthier, smarter, and longer lives? It just might.
One of the most unfortunate episodes in American history was when the federal government took over the sciences, especially those related to our health. Because federal government agencies cannot resist political influence and private sector temptations, government-controlled and funded research can be tainted and sometimes dangerous.
Private influence on government policy
There is no shortage of ethical dilemmas in the federal government. One such problem is that agency leadership often eventually leaves their government positions and transitions into lucrative positions with the same private industries they were previously regulating.
Let’s use a little common sense and consider whether we think those government officials would land big-money private industry gigs if they were not acting favorably toward those private interests.
In 2016, National Public Radio reported, “More than a quarter of the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] employees who approved cancer and hematology drugs from 2001 through 2010 left the agency and now work or consult for pharmaceutical companies, according to research published by a prominent medical journal Tuesday.” (“A Look At How The Revolving Door Spins From FDA To Industry,” September 28, 2016, NPR).
“Sometimes, the public needs [the FDA reviewers] to be firm. If they’re not, no one else in the health care sector is going to be,” Dr. Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and assistant professor at Oregon Health and Science University, said, adding that once the agency approves a drug, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has to cover it and can’t negotiate prices under current laws. “The FDA is often the only real wall between ineffective, harmful drugs and patients.”
For example 2009, Dr. Julie Gerberding, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was named president of Merck & Co Inc’s vaccine division. Did the potential of a big payday influence her agency’s rigid policies on vaccines and vaccine mandates?
To see just how bad it can get, read “The FDA and Moderna’s cosy relationship: how lax rules enable a revolving door culture” in the British Medical Journal, November 2023.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s second-in-command, Louis Milione, quietly stepped down in 2023 amid reporting by The Associated Press that he once consulted for a pharmaceutical distributor sanctioned for a deluge of suspicious painkiller shipments and did similar work for the drugmaker that became the face of the opioid epidemic: Purdue Pharma (“DEA’s No. 2 quits amid reports of consulting work for Big Pharma,” Federal Times, July 19, 2023).
The influential consulting firm McKinsey & Company had an employee consulting with opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma at the same time he was consulting with the Food and Drug Administration to overhaul its office that approves new drugs — the same office that would determine the regulatory fate of Purdue’s new line of proposed products (“McKinsey Opened a Door in Its Firewall Between Pharma Clients and Regulators,” New York Times, April 13, 2022).
Of course, we know that pharmaceutical corporations are multi-billion-dollar entities. They have the financial power to buy off Congress through campaign contributions.
Government tyranny over science
Wealthy corporations can influence government agency officials. Those officials can then manipulate the process by controlling significant government funding sources for medical research and medical researchers to aid those wealthy corporations.
Certain government officials get to control who receives large research grants and what will be researched.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) can legally collect royalties from their research that contributes to the creation of pharmaceutical corporations’ products. Between October 2021 and September 2023, $710 million was distributed among NIH’s institutes, centers, and individuals. Do you think that influences research grants?
In Congressional testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said he and other NIH officials who must submit a financial disclosure report are not required to include details about royalty payments they have received for products or treatments they developed for the government.
Fauci, who retired as the highest-paid federal employee, had a long tenure and held tight reins over which researchers were funded.
Documentation showed that Fauci circumvented government policy and funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, through the third-party bypass organization EcoHealth, run by Peter Daszak.
It is widely believed that Covid-19 was the result of a viral escape from the Wuhan laboratory that killed people around the world.
Documentation also shows that Fauci and others attempted a cover-up and used NIH grant recipients to make false claims about Covid-19. Coincidentally, some researchers who changed their statements on the virus, defending Fauci, received large grants from NIH afterward.
Do you think any of the courageous experts who took issue with the government’s false narrative on the pandemic will ever be awarded another NIH grant?
There’s hope for change
One prominent individual, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has been citing the abuse and fighting the federal government agencies for years.
The Democrat Party rebuffed Kennedy’s attempts to restructure and clean up the corruption that impacts our health. He decided to run for president as an independent and recently abandoned his campaign to support Donald Trump, who embraced Kennedy’s bold stance to reform the federal public health agencies.
Trump relayed that there is a position in the administration for Kennedy, and they have coined the phrase “Make America Healthy Again.”
Kennedy knows how the system works and has fought the government in the courts. His appointment could be the biggest revolution in public health since the creation of the CDC.
It’s time to stop the collusion between big pharma and the federal government. Our nation gets less healthy every year, and we have got to turn the ship around for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
Early voting begins October 15 — go vote.
[Brown is a former mayor of Peachtree City and served two terms on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners. You can read all his columns by clicking on his photo below.]
Steve – Is there any conspiracy theory so fantastical that you will not embrace and politicize it?
Of course money influences government officials on all levels. That is news on par with the declaration that sea water is salty. Supreme Court justices accept money from ideological supporters, Congressional representatives and senators become lobbyist, and some presidents even accept emoluments while in office. Interestingly, you only seem to see it on one end of the political spectrum, and then you inflate it with right wing talking points. When your poster boy is Robert Kennedy, Jr., you know that facts are no longer in play.
Please broaden your sources of information and fact check beyond Fox world.
Steve I think your connection between our nations overall health and big pharma is just touching the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much wrong with so many of the government agencies that are supposed to be looking out for our health: the FDA allows so many chemicals and additives in our food that are banned in the majority of the rest of the world; the CDC and NIH pushing useless vaccines that casue more harm and prevent harm; the Dept of Ag and their food pyramid that stresses grains and carbohydrates and dairy; not to mention our dept of education and the damage they do to our kids mental health by the ridiculousness they’re promoting in public schools. It’s time to come to grips with the fact that our government is widely not acting in our best interests, but they’re acting in the best interests of the corporate lobbyists that line their pockets.