Tag: conflict of interest

The Profit Motive Itself Makes the Best Case Against the FDA

One of President Trump’s campaign pledges was to allow Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to “go wild” as head of Health and Human Services. Some welcomed the idea, scarred by memories such as covid lockdowns and government mask mandates that lasted well beyond the arrival of the vaccines. Others, well aware of Kennedy’s conspiracism and anti-vaccine views, dreaded the news. Agencies under Kennedy, like the FDA, are charged with maintaining standards of medical safety and effectiveness. Does “go wild” mean freeing Americans to make our own health decisions — or ramming bad advice down our throats?

As if to address the concerns of both groups, Kennedy’s FDA announced in May that it approves covid boosters only for those over 65 or in other high-risk groups. The vaccine remains available to everyone, but insurers are no longer forced to cover the full cost (about $150). If you want to get the covid jab with your flu shot, you’ll need to decide if a few extra days of health are worth the price. Leftists wailing about “access” notwithstanding, Kennedy hasn’t “taken away” this vaccine.

The measure seems reasonable until one hears the rationale: Officials described the old guidance as “one-size-fits-all” and based on the assumption that Americans “are not sophisticated enough to understand age- and risk-based recommendations.” First, millions were forgoing the shots. Second, the main impact is on insurance companies, whose job it is to know whether covering shots or treatments is profitable for any given group.

This comes across as an attempt to flatter voters who should be wondering: Why is someone, who sues vaccine makers and has no medical or scientific background or experience, in charge of what vaccines are available and what health insurers can or can not cover?

We know the short answer: Donald Trump wanted to reward Kennedy’s support for his presidential campaign more than he cared about the health of his voters — and nearly every Republican Senator (including four M.D.s !) went along with it.

But this dumpster fire would be impossible if the government weren’t running the biomedical sector of the economy, rather than just protecting our freedom like they are supposed to.

Contrary to the notion that we need a government to ensure safe and effective drugs, there is ample evidence that the profit motive is necessary and sufficient for this purpose .

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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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ABC forced to delete story as it’s revealed reporter received $16,000 from a weapons company for travel costs

The ABC is investigating one of its reporters after it was revealed he received $16,000 in travel costs from a weapons company he covered in one of his stories. 

Andrew Greene travelled from Sydney to Germany on business class flights worth about $16,000, and was put up in hotels in Hamburg and Kiel to attend a press event for the German weapons company TKMS. The company paid for his trip.

The senior defence correspondent for the ABC later filed a segment for The World Today about TKMS including quotes from its CEO Oliver Burkhard. After revelations of Greene’s junket came to light, the story was removed from the ABC website.

‘We know what we’re doing,’ Mr Burkhard told Greene in the report.

‘I know our competitors, they never have been exported in the past.’

Greene did not disclose the trip to either his ABC audience or his bosses, according to Media Watch. 

As far as the ABC knew, he was on personal leave and had obtained audio of Mr Burkhard’s press conference by email, rather than travelling to Germany in person.

Media Watch host Linton Besser was highly critical of the veteran reporter, saying that ‘while Andrew Greene might have a long history as a news breaker, he’s now been brought undone by weakness before temptation’.

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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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RFK Jr: “Pediatricians who vaccinate 80-85% of the kids in their office, get these GIANT bonuses!”

This is perhaps the most important — and most dangerous — article I have ever posted.

But I have to print the truth wherever I find it.

Let’s start with this clip from RFK Jr. explaining how pediatricians are given an incentive to vaccine your children with ALL the vaccines produced by Big Pharma…

So to summarize what he just said, he claims that pediatricians are given a monetary payout — a BONUS — if they vaccinate a high rate of children in their clinic.

He claims it can be as high as $400/child….

But ONLY IF they maintain high levels of vaccination overall at the clinic.

Which is why they freak out on you if you refuse to get the vaccines or don’t want to follow the CDC schedule.

It’s not hard to imagine in this scenario where they start to see each little kid with a dollar sign over their heads instead of a patient!

RFK Jr. explains how the business model is to increase traffic into the clinic.

Unlike when we were kids, and you only went to the doctor if you got hurt, now you go all the time!

Why?

“BUSINESS MODEL”.

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DC Courts Are Such A Mess Because Leftist Judges, Not POTUS, Pick Their Colleagues

Should sitting judges — especially the controversial James Boasberg and Tanya Chutkan — be able to tell the president what other judges he can appoint? Of course not. But under the current system for selecting D.C.’s local judges, that’s exactly what happens.

It’s bad enough that those challenging Trump administration policies have sought to bring their cases before D.C. federal judges like those mentioned above, who they believe will be inclined to rule against the administration — especially on hot button issues like abortion, immigration, government spending, and trans-identifying individuals in the military, just to name a few. But what’s worse is that those same judges have been empowered to help select other judges who are likely to have the same radically different (and sometimes dangerous) view of their judicial role — regardless of the wishes of the sitting president.

Here’s the backstory: For most of our nation’s history, the president appointed District of Columbia judges via the familiar system outlined in the Constitution. When a vacancy occurred, the president would nominate a replacement and appoint that person once confirmed by the Senate.

But starting in 1973 (and slightly before), with the advent of D.C.’s “Home Rule,” Congress radically altered not only the structure and jurisdiction of the district’s courts but also the method by which their judges were selected. Congress ostensibly enacted these “reforms” to give local leaders a greater say in who sat on D.C.’s newly created courts and to make the process “nonpartisan” and “apolitical.”

But we know that selecting judges is an inherently political exercise. And in practice, any impartial observer would have to admit that the current system has loaded the dice to make it impossible for any constitutionally conservative judge to make it onto the bench.

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FDA Removing Pharmaceutical Representatives From Advisory Panels

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is removing pharmaceutical company representatives from advisory committees in a bid to limit industry influence.

Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA’s new commissioner, issued a directive that eliminates the role of pharmaceutical representative

“Industry employees are welcome to attend FDA advisory committee meetings, along with the rest of the American public, but having industry employees serve as official members of FDA advisory committee members represents a cozy relationship that is concerning to many Americans,” Makary said in a statement on April 17. “In fact, the FDA has a history of being influenced unduly by corporate interests.”

The FDA has 32 different advisory committees, including panels that advise the agency on vaccines, food, and medical devices. Members are primarily a mix of federal employees and experts who do not work for industries.

But each FDA committee has an industry representative and an alternate industry representative. The Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, for instance, had a Pfizer officer and a Dynavax officer listed on the roster for its most recent meeting.

The industry representatives do not vote on what advice to convey to the FDA, but “offer perspective of a pharmaceutical company,” Kim Witczak, who has served on several FDA advisory committees, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Sometimes they will say something that could influence or sway the discussion. I always wondered why they were on the committee,” she said.

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