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“The foxes are guarding the chicken coop.” “The inmates are running the asylum.” Both these phrases accurately describe the corrupt, incestuous relationship that exists between Big Pharma Drug Lords and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
That relationship is the subject of a video (seen here) from Russell Brand, the comedian and actor who has also become an outspoken social critic on issues that include corporate capitalism (as he hastens to explain in this video, he is by no means against free markets or capitalism per se, just the corrupt crony capitalism such as he exposes in this video).
In the video, Brand quotes, and comments on, material from a number of different sources, such as The Conversation, Yale News, ProPublica and Science.
From The Conversation:
“The FDA has moved from an entirely taxpayer-funded entity to one increasingly funded by user fees paid by manufacturers that are being regulated.”
Those user fees have enabled more drugs to obtain FDA approval, and more quickly. Along with that, more drugs have had serious safety issues surface after gaining FDA approval, leading Russell Brand to observe that “… Having a set of pharmaceutical companies regulated by an agency that they fund leads to bad drugs being released…”
Brand also exposes “pay later” or “post hoc” conflicts of interest, in which, rather than more obvious quid pro quo payoffs (which would violate agency rules or federal laws), FDA employees or those who advise the FDA’s committees reap their rewards down the line, such as finding jobs or consulting work with the drug companies after leaving the agency’s employ, having their research funded, or other ways the drug companies compensate those who have been of service to them.
From Science:
“Of the more than $24 million in personal payments or research support from industry to the 16 top-earning advisers, 93 percent came from the makers of drugs those advisers previously reviewed.”
Is it any wonder that the COVID-19 vaccines were so quick to be foisted upon the public, despite the negative issues that are only now entering the public’s awareness? Or that the vax makers have done so very well financially, and expect to continue to do so?See “DRUG LORDS’ VAX BOOM BOOMING” (8 Jun 2021).
From ProPublica:
“‘Instead of a regulator and regulated industry, we now have a partnership,’ said Dr. Michael Carome, director of the health research group for the non-profit advocacy organization Public Citizen.”
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has also reported on the FDA’s “uncomfortably close and ethically questionable ties to Big Pharma, resulting in the FDA putting the interests of drug makers and their shareholders above those of patients and public health”; see, for example, “FDA & BIG PHARMA, ONE BIG CLUB” and “AMERICAN MEDICINE, AMERICAN MALFEASANCE” (29 Jun 2021).
Indeed, as we often quote the great U.S. comedian George Carlin who said, “It’s one big club, and you ain’t in it.”