Tag: big pharma

The Information War Over Antidepressants

Stat News hit the ethical and scientific bottom two weeks ago when they published an article by Stephen B. Soumerai, professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Christine Y. Lu, professor at the Sydney Pharmacy School of the University of Sydney.1

I have rarely seen so much disinformation in so few words, only 1,220. I reproduce the article in its entirety, in italics, with my comments. 

I do not consider Stat News a reliable news source. It has corporate ties, and despite its name, it has nothing to do with statistics, which I thought for ten years till I looked it up. Stat is short for Statim, which means immediate in Latin. 

The two professors have forgotten that professors have an obligation towards society to be honest conveyors of science. Their article is propaganda of the worst kind, which is apparent already in its title and subtitle: 

RFK Jr.’s war on antidepressants is coming – and it will cost lives. Kennedy’s rhetoric is not only based on bad science, it fuels distrust in mental health treatments.

It is primitive and a no-go for scientists to raise their voice by using war rhetoric but they continue with this in the first sentence of the article: 

While his war on vaccines may be getting more attention, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is coming for another important medical tool: antidepressants. In November, he posted on X that the CDC is “finally confronting the long-taboo question of whether SSRIs and other psychoactive drugs contribute to mass violence.” We fear that in 2026, he may turn his rhetoric into action.

Kennedy has not started a war on vaccines.2-6 As health secretary, he has taken rational, much needed, and evidence-based initiatives. He fired the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) because it rubber-stamped all proposals that came to them and because some members had conflicts of interest in relation to vaccine manufacturers and other drug companies; dropped the much too broad recommendations for the Covid vaccine; cut funding for mRNA vaccines; stopped recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns; and reduced the huge childhood vaccine schedule that made the US an outlier compared to Europe. 

Moreover, it is well documented that SSRIs and other psychoactive drugs can cause violence.7-11 For antidepressants, the violence is dose-related,11 and it is highly relevant to study their role in mass shootings. Unfortunately, the authorities routinely refuse to release information about what drugs the mass murderers were on. It has become taboo to mention that psychiatric drugs kill people, indeed to such an extent that they are the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer (much because elderly people may lose balance, break their hip, and die).12 

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Texas AG Starts Investigation Into Vaccine-Related Financial Incentives

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Jan. 21 said he’s investigating incentives related to vaccinating children.

Paxton’s office said in a statement that the probe will cover pediatricians, insurers, vaccine companies, and other entities “engaged in deceptive or unlawful conduct by failing to disclose financial incentives connected to their administration of childhood vaccines.”

It noted that some pediatricians kick out families that refuse to adhere to a vaccine schedule and that doctors can receive bonuses for vaccinating.

An Epoch Times investigation found that insurers have offered bonuses as high as $400 per child as an incentive to vaccinate patients.

Paxton is issuing civil investigative demands for information to companies, including UnitedHealthcare and Pfizer.

“I will ensure that Big Pharma and Big Insurance don’t bribe medical providers to pressure parents to jab their kids with vaccines they feel aren’t safe or necessary,” Paxton said in a statement.

He said that Texans “deserve to have full faith in the recommendations of their medical providers—particularly when it involves the health of their children” and that “any provider or entity whose medical guidance is fueled by financial incentives from an insurance company, Big Pharma, or otherwise will be exposed.”

Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for more information.

UnitedHealthcare had said in a document, which was taken down after The Epoch Times’ story was published, that doctors were eligible for bonuses for patients who received vaccines against tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, and human papillomavirus.

The Epoch Times reached out to UnitedHealthcare and Pfizer for comment, but they did not respond by publication time.

Studies have found that vaccinations can be profitable, including a 2020 paper. Some doctors have said in surveys that they can lose money on vaccines due to certain factors, such as low reimbursements.

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Emails show Fauci, Collins plotting to circumvent ‘impressive’ data for COVID natural immunity

The Biden administration grappled with research suggesting natural immunity was more effective than COVID-19 vaccination shortly before federal vaccine mandates in 2021, admitting the rigor of the massive Israeli study and worrying it might undermine its promotion of one-size-fits-all vaccination, newly released emails show.

The Freedom of Information Act production to Protect the Public’s Trust, shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation, gives the most compelling evidence to date that federal officials knew their pending mandates were scientifically shaky yet repeatedly asserted in public – misrepresenting federal research – that natural immunity couldn’t match vaccine-acquired immunity.

The emails add heft to prior claims by a now-former Food and Drug Administration adviser, going back four years, that the feds ultimately rejected natural immunity as an exemption to vaccine mandates for bureaucratic reasons and kept pushing vaccines on all ages and conditions for the sake of simpler messaging, not science.

They also reaffirm the glaring lack of rigorous research by U.S. institutions on basic questions about SARS-CoV-2 and treatment outcomes, with many of the most important findings coming from abroad. The abnormally high risk of heart inflammation in young people post-vaccination, for example, emerged from Israeli data and institutions.

It’s just “more evidence that the public health bureaucracy was ripe for a thorough housecleaning,” Protect the Public’s Trust Director Michael Chamberlain told DCNF, blasting officials for trying to “bury what didn’t fit their preferred narrative” and Americans’ reliance on “Israeli research for their health information” despite billions in federal funding.

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FDA Commissioner CONFIRMS Agency Lied About DIETARY FAT for Decades to Benefit Big Pharma Interests — Says Low-Fat Advice Drove Americans to Eat More SUGAR and Suffer Higher HEART ATTACK Rates

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary admitted that for nearly 20 years, the agency’s dietary guidance on fat was not just wrong, it was misleading, triggering a cascade of unhealthy eating habits that have devastated American health.

Speaking at a White House briefing on Wednesday alongside HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Makary unleashed a scathing indictment of the “medical dogma” that has governed American kitchens since the 1980s.

The Commissioner revealed that the government’s crusade against saturated fats, meat, butter, and eggs, was not only scientifically hollow but directly responsible for the explosion of the chronic disease epidemic.

“For decades, we’ve been fed a corrupt food pyramid that has had a myopic focus on demonizing natural healthy saturated fats, telling you not to eat eggs and steak, and ignoring a giant blind spot: refined carbohydrates, added sugars, ultra-processed food,” said Makary.

“Ironically, they took out the healthy, saturated fat and added sugar, and that was supposed to be healthier. We now have a chronic disease epidemic. The focus on fat has paralleled and ushered in an entire generation of kids with high insulin resistance and levels of inflammation never seen before in the human race.”

On Thursday, Makary doubled down on this new finding, criticizing the long-standing “low-fat” dogma that had led Americans to load up on sugar while avoiding healthy fats.

He suggested the narrative was kept alive, at least in part, to shield powerful corporate interests—including Big Pharma.

Most damning, Makary cited data showing that people who followed low-fat diets actually suffered higher rates of heart attacks than those who consumed healthy fats, directly contradicting decades of so-called “expert” federal nutrition advice.

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Bayer’s Monsanto sues Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna over mRNA technology

Bayer’s Monsanto has sued COVID-19 vaccine makers Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna for allegedly misusing its messenger RNA (mRNA) technology in manufacturing their vaccines.

The lawsuit in the Delaware federal court was confirmed by a Bayer spokesperson on Tuesday, local time.

The patent infringement lawsuits said the companies copied technology developed by Monsanto in the 80s for strengthening mRNA in crops in order to stabilise the genetic material used in their vaccines.

Bayer separately filed a similar lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey federal court, arguing that a DNA-based process J&J used in manufacturing its shots infringed the patent.

A Moderna spokesperson said the company was aware of the lawsuit and would defend itself.

Spokespeople for Pfizer, BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson did not immediately respond to Reuters’s requests for comment.

Bayer’s complaints add to a web of patent lawsuits over the blockbuster COVID-19 shots, which include an ongoing lawsuit filed by Moderna against Pfizer in 2022.

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How Long Has Industry Captured Vaccine Regulation?

Among the many incredible revelations over the past five years is the extent of the power of the pharmaceutical companies. Through advertising, they have been able to shape media content. That in turn has affected digital content companies, which responded from 2020 onward by taking down posts that questioned the safety and efficacy of Covid vaccines. 

They have captured universities and medical journals with donations and other forms of financial control. Finally, they are far more decisive in driving the agenda of governments than we ever knew. Just for example, we found out in 2023 that the NIH shared thousands of patents with pharma, with a market value approaching $1-2 billion. This was all made possible by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which was pushed as a form of privatization but only ended up entrenching the worst corporatist corruptions. 

The hold over governments was cemented with the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which granted a liability shield to the makers of products that appear on the childhood schedule. The injured are simply not permitted to fight it out in civilian courts. No other industry enjoys such sweeping indemnification under the law. 

Pharma today arguably competes with the military munitions industry in its hold over power. No other industry in human history has managed to close the economies of 194 countries to force most of the world’s population to wait for its inoculation. Such power makes the East India Company, against which the American founders revolted, look like a corner grocery by comparison. 

There is ample talk about how much pharma has suffered since its vaunted product flopped. But let’s not be naive. Their power is still ubiquitously on display in every sector of society. The fight at the state level for over-the-counter therapeutics – and for medical freedom for the citizenry – reveals the scope of the challenges ahead. The reformers that now head agencies in Washington are fighting daily through a thicket of influence that goes back many decades. 

Just how far in the past does this power extend? The first federal effort to push vaccination – however primitive and dangerous – was from President James Madison. “The Act to Encourage Vaccination” of 1813 required that smallpox vaccines be given away for free and properly delivered to anyone who requests them. As injury and death piled up, and amidst cries of profiteering and corruption, Congress acted decisively in 1822 to repeal the act. 

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Lefty ‘Consumer’ Watchdog Group Bought & Paid For By Big Pharma

The National Consumers League is America’s oldest consumer advocacy organization and a group trusted by the left, especially, to stand up for consumers’ interests.

But according to a review of its tax filings by the Washington Examiner, it has also become part of a web of astroturf groups shilling for the corporate interests of PhRMA, the massive drugmaker trade association that operates in Washington, DC, which donated close to $1 million to it just last year.

The organization’s 2024 tax form, which became available a few days ago, shows that the non-profit spent close to $600 million last year advocating for Big Pharma’s financial interests and policy agenda in Washington, DC, and state capitals across the country.

And a key way in which that advocacy was accomplished was through the National Consumers League, also known as NCL.

The Examiner reports that “PhRMA donated roughly $2 million to NCL between 2020 and 2024, including $875,000 in 2024 alone.”

During that time, NCL has hewed closely to PhRMA issue positions on matters including regulation of insurers that negotiate for lower drug prices for Americans (also known as PBMs), and the 340B drug discount program that disproportionately benefits red, rural America.

But a review of content historically featured on NCL’s website indicates that prior to taking PhRMA money, the group never criticized PBMs or 340B.

When asked for comment by the Examiner, NCL did not deny that their criticism of PBMs and 340B was related to the PhRMA funding, and they confirmed “that contributions from PhRMA support [the group’s] ‘healthcare work.’”

The Examiner has previously reported on apparent astroturf, “pay-to-play” advocacy efforts undertaken by PhRMA.

The Wall Street Journal also ran an exposé about PhRMA’s tactics in the nation’s capital, including what critics say looks like a “buying off” of supposed progressive “identity” groups like Black, Gifted & Whole– a group focused on “Black Queer men”– and MANA, A National Latina Organization.

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Exposing the vaccine industry: How corruption, fraud and coercion endanger public health

In a damning exposé, lawyer Aaron Siri’s book “Vaccines, Amen: The Religion of Vaccines” reveals how the American public has been systematically deceived by institutions they were taught to trust—namely, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and pharmaceutical giants. Through meticulous legal battles, Siri uncovers a web of corruption, scientific misconduct and outright fraud that has allowed unsafe vaccines to flood the market while silencing dissenters.

The dogma of vaccines: Faith over science

Vaccines have been elevated to near-religious status, with proponents demanding blind faith rather than critical scrutiny. As Siri explains, people say they “believe in vaccines” without examining the data—because the data, when scrutinized, often doesn’t support the industry’s claims. Instead, vaccine advocates rely on flawed studies, industry-funded research and outright deception to push their agenda.

One of the most shocking revelations is the lack of placebo-controlled trials for childhood vaccines. Despite claims from figures like Dr. Paul Offit—who insists all vaccines undergo rigorous placebo testing—Siri proves that not a single vaccine on the CDC’s childhood schedule was approved based on such trials. Instead, new vaccines are compared to older ones, masking their true risks. This is akin to declaring cigarettes safe because they’re no worse than cigars.

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ACIP Reveals: The Newborn Hepatitis B Vaccination Policy Was Built on Narrative, Not Science

The vote on whether to continue the universal newborn hepatitis B vaccination policy was postponed, but the discussion at ACIP exposed how, for decades, the blanket directive to vaccinate infants immediately after birth rested on assumptions, theoretical models, and partial data rather than on a solid scientific foundation.

“As a father and a scientist, I do not understand how we have the courage to ask parents to vaccinate a healthy newborn at birth when the child’s risk is so low and the evidence so thin. I honestly do not know where that courage comes from.”

This statement by Prof. Retsef Levi during yesterday’s ACIP meeting captured, with his characteristic clarity and directness, the core theme that emerged from the entire session: significant scientific gaps in a universal vaccination policy that has been in place for more than three decades in the United States.

The committee had been scheduled to vote on what seemed like technical questions: whether to eliminate universal newborn vaccination and administer the hepatitis B shot only to infants whose mothers test positive, and whether to replace the current policy, which does not allow for full informed consent, with a shared decision-making model between parents and physicians regarding vaccination later in infancy.

What surfaced during the session may have been even more important than the vote itself: for the first time, the ACIP’s scientific staff presented, openly and systematically, the profound gap between the institutional narrative and the evidence base, or rather the lack of one, that underpinned an expansive policy for 30 years. They detailed how a major, far-reaching public health directive had been constructed on assumptions, theoretical frameworks, and partial datasets, absent rigorous foundational research.

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Scientists who advised government during Covid did not reveal they had received more than £200m in grants from one of the world’s biggest pharma investors, report says

Scientific advisors to the Government during the Covid pandemic failed to reveal they received over £200million in grants from one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical investors, a report reveals.

Twenty-six members of the influential Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), which helped shape lockdown rules, did not register the research funding from the Wellcome Trust in an apparent conflict of interest.

The report by the campaign group UsForThem analysed research data from The Wellcome Trust, which is largely funded by its investment portfolio and links to the pharmaceutical industry.

It claims the 26 members received at least £210 million in grants from Wellcome between 2018 and 2026 which were not declared on the SAGE register of participants’ interests (Ropi) with £175 million provided during the key Covid years of 2020 and 2021 alone.

Analysis by the Mail on Sunday of publicly-available information shows one grant recipient was Professor Neil Ferguson, one of the biggest advocates for vaccines and whose advice to Prime Minister Boris Johnson led to the UK lockdown in March 2020, and who famously resigned as a government adviser two months later after it emerged he broke rules to meet his married lover.

Prof Ferguson declared in the register that he was involved with a ‘Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium’, but did not mention Wellcome anywhere.

Yet he was either the lead applicant or sponsored other applications for grants worth £5.6million including a £1.25 million grant looking at influenza-like viruses in Vietnam, according to the analysis of Wellcome’s figures.

Of the 149 SAGE members during the Covid crisis 38 applied for funding or supported other applications to the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s biggest charity.

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