Tag: big pharma

The Burgeoning Fight Between MAHA and the Tech Right

President Donald Trump proclaimed victory in 2024 thanks in part due to his success at forging a broad coalition across both the country and political spectrum. Trump’s traditional MAGA base was joined by economic moderates, business opportunists, foreign favor-seekers, and anti-interventionists. Perhaps most notably, the Democrat-turned-independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement rallied around Trump to help push him over the victory line against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Health-conscious and “expert”-skeptical, the Make America Healthy Again movement, or MAHA for short, was the result of an ideological split in the left-wing, environmentalist green movement. 

Once upon a time, activists of the tree-hugging, organic food–purchasing, anti-establishment, hippie variety who had nothing but distrust for Big Pharma and the institutional status quo were widely considered to be as far from the Republican Party as humanly possible.

But in the early 2000s, activists in the green and alternative movement found themselves joined—and soon essentially replaced—by a new breed of suit-and-tie, Trust the Science environmentalist. Epitomized by Al Gore and his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, these new activists were men and women of white coats, bar charts, and peer-reviewed studies with an almost religious devotion to “Science,” “Institutions,” and “The Data.”

When Covid-19 hit in 2020, their mantra “trust the science” quickly morphed into “trust Big Pharma” and “do as you’re told,” and it became apparent that a split with the anti-authoritarian, pharma-skeptics who built the movement was inevitable.

This group (for the most part) rallied around Kennedy’s 2024 presidential campaign, and many of them stood by his side when, in August, Kennedy dropped out of the race to endorse Trump, attaching MAHA to the Republican MAGA coalition. With Trump’s electoral victory, and Kennedy’s elevation to the position of secretary of health, it is clear who won the battle in the end—the Trust the Science faction having been effectively decimated in the backlash which took place against the illogical authoritarianism of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, as old opponents lick their wounds, a new one looms on the horizon—an faction that has wormed its way, and continues to worm its way, into the Trump administration at an alarming rate: the ever-opportunistic tech-right.

Fresh off Trump’s 2024 election victory (which was in part made possible thanks to donations from Silicon Valley allies, including Elon Musk), former adversaries of the America First movement were given passage into the new administration. Musk was appointed head of DOGE, giving him considerable power in government despite the fact this his “department” was officially nothing more than an advisory committee; senior executives from Facebook parent company Meta, OpenAI, and Palantir were appointed lieutenant colonels in the U.S. Army as part of a new detachment specifically formed for Big Tech; and Silicon Valley–backed health startups were also able to take advantage of the new political environment.

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RFK Jr. Clashes with Democrat in House Hearing over Vaccines: ‘You’ve Accepted $2 Million from Pharma’

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. clashed with Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) during a fiery House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday, claiming the Democrat was abandoning vaccine-injured Americans after accepting millions in donations from the pharmaceutical industry.

Kennedy was testifying on the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget request for the Department of Health and Human Services when Pallone launched into a blistering attack. “Secretary Kennedy, quite frankly, I think you’re trying to defend the indefensible. There’s no way that this budget or the actions you have taken thus far as secretary are going to make this country healthier,” he said. Pallone went on to accuse the Secretary of pushing anti-science views, promoting conspiracy theories, and endangering lives with his vaccine policies. “I just really think that people are going to die as a result of your actions and congressional Republicans’ actions,” he warned.

Pallone also raised concerns about the lack of communication between HHS and Congress. He pressed further, demanding to know why Kennedy had not opened public comments on vaccine-related decisions. “You say you want transparency, but there’s been no public process for any of this. Why?” he asked.

Kennedy replied, “We have a public process for regulating vaccines. It’s called the ACIP committee, and it’s a public meeting that we —”

Pallone cut in, “You fired the committee.”

Kennedy responded, “I fired people who had conflicts with the pharmaceutical industry. That committee has been a template for medical malpractice for years.”

As his time for questioning drew to a close, Pallone concluded, “The bottom line is here we have no transparency, we have no response. You feel no responsibility to Congress whatsoever, and you just continue this ideology that’s anti-science, anti-vaccine. That’s all I see. I see nothing else. And I don’t think I’m ever going to get a response.”

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Former Vaccine Committee Did Not Follow the Rules

In the spring of 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services underwent a sharp shift in leadership and oversight. With Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. assuming the role of Secretary, one of the most scrutinized decisions was his removal of 17 members from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). The move followed years of concern about industry entanglement and sparked immediate backlash. Those dismissed issued a public letter defending their integrity and insisting that they had followed all disclosure requirements. But a detailed look at ACIP’s meeting history reveals that reporting a conflict of interest is not the same as acting on it—and that many of these members repeatedly failed to recuse themselves from discussions and votes where conflicts were plain.

ACIP is a federally chartered committee that sets the nation’s vaccine recommendations. Its decisions determine what vaccines are required for school entry, which are covered under federal programs like Vaccines for Children (VFC), and how billions in taxpayer dollars are spent. With that responsibility comes the requirement—both legal and ethical—to act free from industry influence. That doesn’t just mean disclosing conflicts. It means avoiding decisions in which personal or institutional interests could interfere with impartiality.

Over the last two decades, numerous ACIP members declared financial ties to vaccine manufacturers, but continued to participate in discussions and cast votes on matters directly tied to those companies. In many cases, those votes concerned vaccine products made by companies funding the members’ own clinical trials or compensating them as advisors. Under the CDC ethics policy, aligned with federal advisory standards, members are expected to recuse themselves from both discussion and voting when a conflict is present. Many did not.

For example, Dr. Cody Meissner, who served from 2008 to 2012, disclosed that his institution—Tufts Medical Center—received research funding from MedImmune, Pfizer, Wyeth, and AstraZeneca. Yet he voted on influenza and pneumococcal vaccine recommendations during that same period, with no recusal recorded in the meeting minutes.

Dr. Tamera Coyne-Beasley, who served from 2010 to 2014, repeatedly disclosed Merck-funded clinical trials conducted at the University of North Carolina. She voted on Merck-related vaccine policies, including HPV and adolescent immunization schedules, without recusal.

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CDC Advisers Ousted by RFK Jr. Voted on Vaccines Despite Conflicts

Multiple people who until early June served on a federal vaccine advisory committee cast votes on vaccines despite receiving or recently receiving money from pharmaceutical companies that stood to be affected by the votes, according to an Epoch Times review.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on June 9 removed all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines, citing issues such as conflicts of interest.

Dr. Helen Y. Chu, a professor of medicine and allergy and infectious diseases at the University of Washington, reported throughout 2024 receiving funds from Merck, among other pharmaceutical companies. In October 2024, in her first meeting as a member of ACIP, Chu voted in favor of expanding recommendations for vaccination against pneumococcal disease.

Merck manufactures multiple pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.

Chu did not submit any conflict of interest disclosures for the meeting, according to a CDC database.

ACIP members “are required to declare any potential conflicts of interest that arise in the course of ACIP tenure,” according to the CDC’s website. Members who declare perceived or actual conflicts of interest, the site says, “will be asked to recuse themselves from participating in the discussion and decision-making of the issues relating to that interest.”

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Second Patient Dies After Gene Therapy for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: Company

A second patient has died after receiving the gene therapy Elevidys, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over concerns of staffers, according to the company that makes it.

The 15-year-old boy who died, and the 16-year-old boy whose death was reported earlier in the year, had both received Elevidys, the only gene therapy approved by the FDA for the treatment of a rare form of muscular dystrophy called Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), Sarepta officials said in a call on June 16.

The boys were both non-ambulatory and both died within 90 days of treatment, according to Sarepta.

The 15-year-old died from acute liver failure, Sarepta said in a statement on Sunday. Acute liver injury is listed as a side effect of the product.

Sarepta said it was investigating the cases independently and in relation to each other to identify any common risk factors. The company suspended its Elevidys sales forecast for this year and said it would provide an update with its second-quarter results.

Sarepta officials said the company is pausing shipments of Elevidys for non-ambulatory patients and halting a clinical trial while it develops an “enhanced immunosuppressive regimen,” utilizing the sirolimus drug. They said there is no timeline right now for resuming dosing for the population and that they would try to speak soon with FDA officials about the situation.

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TV Networks Face Advertising Apocalypse After Trump Admin Mulls Pharma Restrictions

Last week independent Senators Bernie Sanders (VT) and Angus King (ME) introduced legislation that would ban pharmaceutical companies from promoting prescription drugs directly to consumers – including through television, radio, print, digital platforms, and social media. 

Today, Bloomberg reports that the Trump administration is now ‘discussing policies that would make it harder and more expensive for pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to patients.’

The two policies the administration has focused in on would be to require greater disclosures of side effects of a drug within each ad — likely making broadcast ads much longer and prohibitively expensive — or removing the industry’s ability to deduct direct-to-consumer advertising as a business expense for tax purposes, these people said.

Although the US is the only place, besides New Zealand, where pharma companies can directly advertise, banning pharma ads outright could make the administration vulnerable to lawsuits, so it’s instead focusing on cutting down on the practice by adding legal and financial hurdles, according to people familiar with the plans who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

If this happens, it would mark a major victory for Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., who says he believes Americans consume more drugs than people in other countries due to the ability of US drug companies to directly advertise to consumers. 

While running for president, Mr. Kennedy said he would issue an executive order removing pharmaceutical ads from television, citing overmedication and industry influence on news coverage.

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The Statin Wars

We shouldn’t have been surprised that the Covid experience was so marred by financial conflicts where pharmaceutical industry interests called the shots—too often to the detriment of our health.

Some of us weren’t surprised.

For decades, I’ve been unearthing unthinkable scandals inside our medical establishment. They are stories that I wouldn’t have believed myself had I not spoken to first hand sources and whistleblowers, and seen the proof in hard data and documents.

The Statin Wars is one such example.

I began covering issues regarding cholesterol-lowering statins and conflicts of interest around 2004 when I was an investigative reporter for CBS News.

I continued covering these issues on my independent Sunday television program “Full Measure.”

The statin controversy began when a panel of government advisers decided our cholesterol levels should be lower than we thought. It turns out nearly every one of the “experts” — was paid by statin makers. Yet none of them initially disclosed this financial conflict of interest!

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Vaccine Advisory Committee Dismissed By HHS Had Close Ties To Big Pharma, Donated To Democrats

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) just dismissed every voting member from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a group made up entirely of Biden appointees, many of whom have seemingly major conflicts of interest because of ties to large pharmaceutical corporations and histories of donating to Democrats.

ACIP, an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has a history of rubber-stamping everything it comes across, with some members even voting in favor of major changes like recommending that children ages 5 to 11 receive a coronavirus “vaccine” booster shot without any data to support that intervention.

Other members have taken consulting fees and related payments from Big Pharma, donated to far-left Democrats, and appear to look uncritically at any item regarding vaccines.

“Today we are prioritizing the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda,” Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a press release. “The public must know that unbiased science — evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest — guides the recommendations of our health agencies.”

“A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,” he continued. “ACIP’s new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine. The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas. The entire world once looked to American health regulators for guidance, inspiration, scientific impartiality, and unimpeachable integrity. Public trust has eroded. Only through radical transparency and gold standard science, will we earn it back.”

HHS plans to rebuild the advisory committee from scratch.

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FDA Approved Hundreds of Drugs With No Evidence They Work

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved hundreds of drugs over the last several decades with little to no evidence that they work, according to a new investigation by The Lever.

Many of the drugs are permitted to stay on the market, despite ample evidence that they don’t work and that they cause serious and irreparable harm.

The Lever’s two-year investigation into the FDA-approved drugs analyzed government reports, internal FDA documents, investigators’ notes, congressional testimony, court records and more than 100 interviews with researchers, federal officials and patients.

The investigation found that from 2013 through 2022, 73% of drugs approved by the FDA didn’t meet the agency’s four foundational standards required to show the drugs work as expected. Fifty-five of the approved drugs met only one of those four standards, and 39 met none of them.

More than half of drug approvals were based on preliminary data, which meant the pharmaceutical companies didn’t submit evidence that patients had fewer symptoms, showed improvement or had their lives extended.

The approval rate of such drugs has accelerated over the last decade, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General.

Cancer treatments, in particular, raised serious red flags. Only 2.4% of the 123 cancer drugs met all of the criteria, and 29 met none. The FDA approved 81% of cancer drugs based on preliminary data.

The report did not evaluate any vaccines.

The Lever wrote:

“These statistics come after billions of dollars and years of lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry and patient advocacy groups pressuring Congress to loosen the FDA’s scientific standards.

“The resulting seismic shift from proving drugs work before they are approved to showing they work only after approval — if ever — has been quietly accomplished with virtually no awareness by doctors or the public.

“Insurers and taxpayers effectively pay for research after drugs hit the market as pharmaceutical companies reap the profits. Patients serve as the unwitting guinea pigs — with very real consequences.”

The outlet also reported that an estimated 128,000 people are killed each year by side effects from prescription drugs prescribed as indicated.

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Liver Injuries Reportedly on the Rise: Common, FDA-Approved Meds Linked to Alarming Trend

As more people find themselves using more vitamins, supplements, and everyday medications, more related health issues keep cropping up.

And a recent spate of reports highlights a particular danger for one part of your body: the liver.

“As cases of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) are on the rise, experts are warning of the hidden dangers associated with some common medications and supplements,” Fox News reported Monday.

The outlet added, “Statistics show that DILI, also known as toxic hepatitis or hepatotoxicity — which is known to be a significant cause of acute liver failure — has been growing in Western countries since the 1960s.”

“Even medications that have been tested for safety and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can potentially cause liver injury in rare cases,” Fox reported.

Just days earlier, on May 27, NBC News had posted a similarly alarming report regarding these health ramifications.

The outlet spoke to Robert Grafton, a former medical technologist who noticed signs of liver failure in himself and largely traced it back to various supplements and vitamins he had been taking.

“I stopped taking everything, thank goodness,” Grafton said. “If I hadn’t known, if I was not in the medical field, I might have thought, ‘Oh, I think I’m getting sick. I need to take some more of these supplements to help me feel better.’”

Despite stopping, symptoms worsened and test results pointed toward devastating liver failure.

It turned out to be a case of DILI.

“It is estimated that between 13.9 and 19.1 cases of DILI occur for every 100,000 people, according to recent research published in the journal Toxicology Reports,” Fox noted.

The triggers of DILI can vary, from the vitamins and supplements that Grafton had been taking, mentioned above, to aspirin, the common over-the-counter painkiller.

Those with health conditions are more susceptible to DILI, but as Grafton — someone who began taking his health seriously after having children — shows, it can hit very healthy people, too.

Fox News medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel told his network that the unregulated nature of supplements could betray some of their purported health benefits.

“The biggest problem with herbal supplements is that the amount you are taking of active chemicals isn’t strictly regulated, so you don’t know exactly what you are getting,” he said. “And since several of the supplements are metabolized through the liver, there is now an increasing incidence of liver toxicity in users.”

According to the National Institutes of Health, “nearly all classes of medications” can cause DILI.

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