“A pill for every ill.” Thank or Blame, Rockefeller and Carnegie for Monopolizing Western Medicine?

“A pill for every ill.” How did we get here?

Western allopathic medicine with its use of pharmaceuticals, surgery and other invasive treatments are truly technological amazing feats. Especially for treatments for traumatic injuries, genetic disorders and other specific he ailments. But are pharmaceuticals and surgery necessary or the best option for every cough, sneeze, wheeze, ache or pain? There are other options available such as diet and lifestyle choices, exercise, herbs and other seemingly “alternative” methods. Some of these options have been used for thousands of years, standing the test of time. However, many in the US favor Western allopathic (biomedicine) and often have never heard of, been informed or educated to specific alternative or traditional healthcare (self-care) treatments and methods. This is not by mere happenstance but more likely from a carefully orchestrated marketing plan initiated around the early 1900’s by extremely wealthy businessmen John D. Rockerfeller and Andrew Carnegie.

The influence of Carnegie and Rockefeller on Western medicine played a large role in shifting the focus away from traditional medical practices toward more scientific, evidence-based medicine. Carnegie and Rockefeller, two of America’s most prominent industrialists, wielded significant influence over the development and implementation of Western allopathic or biomedicine medicine. Their impact, while enormous, was a complex relationship of positive and negative consequences. The Flexner Report was funded in 1910 by the Rockefeller Foundation and authored by Abraham Flexner which helped to reform medical education and care in the United States, thereby leading to higher standards and a more rigorous, scientifically based medical curriculum.

Positive Impacts:

Standardization of Medical Education: Both Carnegie and Rockefeller were greatly involved in funding the Flexner Report, a revolutionary study that led to the standardization of medical education in the United States. This resulted in a consequential improvement in the quality of medical training and relative patient care. The reforms that came about from this report helped to reduce the prevalence of unproven or harmful treatments.

Advancement of Medical Research: Their philanthropic support established research institutions and funded new methods of medical research. This support influenced many medical advancements.

Improved Public Health: Rockefeller’s philanthropy impacted treatments for diseases through The Rockefeller Foundation, founded in 1913, such as yellow fever and hookworm, greatly improving public health and reducing mortality rates. Also, the foundation supported the development of public health schools, including the Harvard School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Scientific Rigor: The increased focus on scientific research and evidence-based practices led to major advancements in medical knowledge and treatment efficacy.

Public Health Improvements: Public health initiatives and medical research helped to eradicate and manage many infectious diseases.

Negative Impacts:

Suppression of Alternative Medicine: The standardization of medical education under the Flexner Report, while helping to improve overall medical treatment and relative quality, also led to much stifling of alternative medical practices. This consequently impacted the exploration of diverse healing modalities and potential benefits from such treatments.

Marginalization of Traditional Practices: Many traditional and holistic practices that were deeply embedded in various cultures, were disregarded or labeled as quackery or ineffective. Practices that lacked scientific validation, despite potentially being effective, were often dismissed, as Western medicine became more dominant.

Closure of Alternative Medical Schools: Schools that did not meet the new rigorous standards were closed. This included institutions that taught naturopathy, homeopathy, and other alternative medical practices.

Focus on Profit: Critics believe that the intimate relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and Rockefeller’s philanthropy created a system that prioritizes profit over patient well-being. This profit-based healthcare system is thought to have influenced the direction of medical research and drug development since its inception over one hundred years ago.

Disparities in Healthcare: While Rockefeller and Carnegie’s philanthropic efforts are notable, some are more critical in seeing their roles as having purposely or inadvertently contributed to healthcare disparities. Critics focus on the closure of many African American medical schools following the Flexner Report, which led to limiting opportunities for Black physicians and impacting healthcare access within Black communities.

Medical Monopolies: The rise of a more standardized medical system led to the formation of medical monopolies, reducing the diversity of medical treatments and approaches.

Pharmaceutical Focus: The focus on pharmaceutical treatment solutions and surgical interventions often takes precedence over other potentially effective traditional therapies, such as herbal medicine and other holistic approaches.

Schools Closed After the Flexner Report

The Flexner Report led to the closure of a wide variety of medical schools, in particular those that focused on alternative medical practices, for-profit proprietary schools, and Black medical schools. The long-term ramifications included the consolidation of medical education under a more scientifically rigorous, allopathic (biomedicine) model, but it also contributed to the gradual erosion of medical diversity, helping to bring about more racial and gender disparities in medical training. Out of approximately 155 medical schools in existence at the time, over 50% (more than 80 schools) were closed within the decade following the report’s publication. The schools affected can be categorized into different types based on their fields of study and student populations:

Alternative Medical Schools:

Homeopathic and Alternative Medicine: These schools were specifically targeted by the Flexner Report because they did not align with the allopathic or conventional medicine model, which the report strongly favored. Homeopathic and alternative schools either converted to follow allopathic principles or ceased to remain open.

Naturopathic and Osteopathic Schools: Some osteopathic schools remained operating by aligning their curricula more closely with the scientific, evidence-based model that the Flexner Report promoted. Naturopathic schools faced an eventual decline.

Proprietary Schools (For-Profit Schools):

A large amount of the schools closed were proprietary, also referred to as “for-profit institutions.” These schools often required less rigorous admissions standards, less equiped laboratory facilities, and less access to teaching hospitals. These would include some medical schools that taught natural remedies, herbal medicine, homeopathy and other alternative practices. Many alternative or non-allopathic medical schools were shut down after being deemed insufficiently scientific by the Flexner standards.

Black Medical Schools:

Access to Medical Education: With the onset of fewer medical schools accessible to Black students, opportunities to pursue medical education and careers in medicine were more severely reduced within the Black demographic at the time. This in turn, increased healthcare disparities within Black communities, both in the immediate aftermath and in the years that followed the report.

Long-Term Impact: The ripple effect of these closures continues today to affect the diversity within the medical profession and the quality of healthcare in underserved communities. Out of the seven Black medical schools that existed at the time, only two survived after the report. Those would have been Howard University College of Medicine (Washington, D.C.) and Meharry Medical College (Nashville, Tennessee).

Five Black medical schools that were closed included:

Leonard Medical School at Shaw University (Raleigh, NC)

Flint Medical College at New Orleans University (New Orleans, LA)

Knoxville College Medical Department (Knoxville, TN)

Louisville National Medical College (Louisville, KY)

University of West Tennessee College of Medicine and Surgery (Memphis, TN)

The Flexner report quite heavily criticized these schools for lacking adequate faculty, funding, and facilities, leading to the closure of most Black medical schools. This consequently had a damaging impact on the number of Black physicians, increasing racial disparities in healthcare.

Women’s Medical Schools:

Many medical schools for women also endured closure after the Flexner Report. Women’s schools had already been facing discrimination, but the report further limited their operations by requiring them to have the same scientific standards as the other male institutions, while not taking into account the limited support, resources and funding available to them. Smaller women’s medical colleges either closed or merged with coeducational institutions in order to survive. The Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania would go on to survive due to eventual reforms.

Introduction of Petroleum Products into Healthcare:

Petroleum products have had a major impact on pharmaceutical production and implementation. The rise of the petroleum industry, in which figures like John D. Rockefeller played a central role, facilitated the development of various synthetic chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Here are several significant ways in which petroleum products influenced the pharmaceutical industry:

Development of Synthetic Drugs

Raw Materials: Petroleum products provide raw materials for the production of many drugs. Petrochemicals, refined from petroleum, have become essential building blocks in pharmaceutical chemistry.
Cost and Efficiency: The ease and availability of petroleum-based raw materials made the production of synthetic drugs more cost-effective and efficient, enabling the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals on a large scale.
Innovation: The ability to create synthetic chemical compounds has led to the discovery and development of new pharmaceutical drugs that were previously impossible to produce utilizing natural sources alone.

Expansion of the Pharmaceutical Industry

Growth of Big Pharma: The development of synthetic drugs and the ability to mass-produce them has greatly aided the growth of major pharmaceutical companies. These companies have often invested in research and development, thereby further advancing the field of medicine.
Increased Accessibility: The grand-scale production of pharmaceuticals has made drugs more accessible to a broader population, sometimes enhancing public health improvements. Other times, not so much as when particular drugs are recalled or banned due to lack of efficacy and/or discovery of detrimental longterm side effects.

Impact on Drug Manufacturing

Solvents and Excipients: Petroleum-derived solvents and excipients are crucial in the production of many pharmaceuticals. These substances play a major role in the processing and stabilization of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
Packaging Materials: Petroleum products are used to make plastics and other materials for pharmaceutical packaging. This has helped to improve the transportation, storage, transportation, and shelf-life of medications.

Examples of Petroleum-Influenced Pharmaceuticals

Antibiotics: Penicillin, an antibiotic, has benefited from petrochemical solvents and various industrial processes developed through the petroleum industry.
Aspirin: The large-scale synthesis of aspirin was due to advances in chemical engineering and the availability of petrochemical raw materials.

Conclusion

The impact of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller on Western allopathic medicine is multifaceted. While their contributions to medical research, education, and public health are undeniable, their influence also shaped the direction of medicine in ways that had both positive and negative consequences. It is important to recognize that, although Carnegie and Rockefeller advanced Western allopathic medicine by promoting scientific rigor and public health initiatives, they also contributed to the decline of many traditional medical practices. The shift toward a more scientific approach brought numerous benefits but also led to the marginalization of traditional and holistic methods once considered effective and safe. Moreover, the Flexner Report backed by their funding, had long-lasting detrimental effects on Black medical schools, which in turn affected the training of Black physicians and healthcare in Black communities. This dual influence critically shaped their legacies within the medical field.

References:

Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller’s Influence on Medicine:

Brown, E. R. (1979). Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America. This book discusses the influence of the Rockefeller Foundation on American medicine, including its role in the establishment of medical research institutions and public health initiatives.
Flexner, A. (1910). Medical Education in the United States and Canada: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The original Flexner Report, commissioned by the Carnegie Foundation, played a central role in the reform of medical education, including the closure of many medical schools.
Marks, H. M. (1997). The Progress of Experiment: Science and Therapeutic Reform in the United States, 1900-1990. This book explores how the philanthropic efforts of individuals like Rockefeller shaped the modernization of medicine through scientific research and public health reforms.

Impact of the Flexner Report on Black Medical Schools:

Savitt, T. L. (2002). “Abraham Flexner and the Black Medical Schools.” Journal of the National Medical Association, 94(3), 246-257. This article specifically addresses the impact of the Flexner Report on Black medical schools and how it led to the closure of most Black medical institutions, exacerbating racial disparities in medical education.
Byrd, W. M., & Clayton, L. A. (2000). An American Health Dilemma: A Medical History of African Americans and the Problem of Race (Vol. 1). Routledge. This book provides an in-depth history of the challenges faced by Black medical professionals and institutions, including the long-term effects of the Flexner Report.

Marginalization of Traditional Medical Practices:

Hirschkorn, K. A. (2006). “Exclusive Versus Everyday Forms of Professional Medical Knowledge: Legitimacy Claims in Conventional and Alternative Medicine.” Sociology of Health & Illness, 28(5), 533-557. This article discusses how the rise of evidence-based medicine marginalized alternative and traditional medical practices in favor of standardized scientific approaches.
Whorton, J. C. (2002). Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America. This book provides historical context for how alternative and traditional medical practices, such as homeopathy and naturopathy, were sidelined by the rise of scientific medicine promoted by figures like Carnegie and Rockefeller.

Petroleum’s Role in Pharmaceutical Development:

Torrance, A. W. (1998). “From Coal to Oil: The Role of the Petrochemical Industry in Medicine.” Chemical Heritage Magazine. This article explores how the rise of the petroleum industry contributed to advancements in synthetic chemistry, which was crucial for pharmaceutical development.
Hounshell, D. A., & Smith, J. K. (1988). Science and Corporate Strategy: DuPont R&D, 1902-1980. This book examines how major chemical companies like DuPont, using petroleum products, played a crucial role in developing synthetic chemicals for pharmaceuticals.
Sneader, W. (2005). Drug Discovery: A History. This comprehensive history of pharmaceuticals includes details on how the availability of petrochemical raw materials revolutionized drug manufacturing.

I teach and offer lectures about holistic health, physical fitness, stress management, human behavior, meditation, phytotherapy (herbs), music for healing, self-massage (acupressure), Daoyin (yoga), qigong, tai chi, and baguazhang.

Please contact me if you, your business, organization, or group, might be interested in hosting me to speak on a wide spectrum of topics relative to better health, fitness, and well-being.

I look forward to further sharing more of my message by partnering with hospitals, wellness centers, VA centers, schools on all levels, businesses, and individuals who see the value in building a stronger nation through building a healthier population.

I also have hundreds of FREE education video classes, lectures, and seminars available on my YouTube channel at:

https://www.youtube.com/c/MindandBodyExercises

Many of my publications can be found on Amazon at:

http://www.Amazon.com/author/jimmoltzan

My holistic health blog is available at:

https://mindandbodyexercises.wordpress.com/

http://www.MindAndBodyExercises.com

Mind and Body Exercises on Google: https://posts.gle/aD47Qo

Jim Moltzan

407-234-0119

Why People Have Lost Faith in the CDC, FDA & the US Healthcare System

I rely on a diverse array of reliable sources for my research, including peer-reviewed studies, medical journals, and databases like PubMed and BMJ. I choose Google Scholar and other sites as a means to finding other sources of information knowing that information needs to be quantified. As far as the CDC and the FDA websites are concerned, my skepticism is that they will not post their own shortcomings on their own websites. Instead, we need to look towards more reputable and non-biased news or research sources that are not connected financially to these government agencies. For example, the American Medical Association has recognized the public’s lack of trust in the CDC, highlighting the need for greater transparency (American Medical Association, 2020) where it will carry more weight if the CDC actually acknowledges what many have already felt was a lack of transparency of information during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, I believe that The Washington Post is considered a legitimate and reliable news source. The Post reported that the CDC experienced “technical blunders and botched messaging” that were brought to public attention by friends, supporters, and even some professionals within the CDC’s own Atlanta headquarters (Sun & Achenbach, 2020).

Evidence-based Medicine?

Dr. Jon Jureidini, a child psychiatrist in Australia and a member of the Critical and Ethical Mental Health (CEMH) research group, authored ‘The Illusion of Evidence-based Medicine’ (2022). The CEMH conducts critical appraisal, meta-research, teaching, and advocacy, with the goal of promoting safer, more effective, and more ethical research and practice in the field of mental health (Staff Directory | Dr Jon Jureidini, n.d.).

Dr. Jon Jureidini reports that medicine is mostly dominated by a few very large and competing pharmaceutical companies, that are quite aligned in their methods to expand their profits. He reports on the issues of evidence-based medicine being compromised by the commercialization of academia, failed regulation, and other corporate influences. This doctor sees the scientific progress being abused by the medical industry and its relationship with academic researchers, as they often do not share raw data, suppress negative trial results, and fail to report adverse events. Because of this, there is a greater potential for patient death, due to commercial interests’ influence upon regulators, research agenda, and universities. He strongly suggests that reforms need to be made in all of these areas, in order to bring trust and legitimacy back to evidence-based medicine. Jureidini calls for a separation of regulators from drug company funding, due to regulators often accepting funding and industry-funded trials to approve drugs that a particular company is trying to market (Jureidini, 2022).

Why Drug Marketing Rules America

Lydia Green, a pharmacist, and former pharmaceutical advertising copywriter speaks about her goals of decreasing the sway of influence of pharmaceutical marketing and misinformation on the American healthcare industry. America contributes only 5% to the population of the world yet spends 1/3 of the world’s $1.4 trillion pharmaceutical healthcare marketplace. In spite of spending the most, the US often ranks low on the overall health of its population. Medicine often prioritizes profit over patient well-being. These pharmaceutical companies are businesses that at their root, just like all businesses, operate to make a profit. Again, it is all about the money. When healthcare and its relative components of pharmaceuticals, doctors, and the profits that both can gain from promoting their products, despite actual need – this whole system is severely corrupt and broken and in need of drastic reform. Green proposes a need for a 3rd party agency to help return trust, regarding the pharmaceutical industry. This alliance would be made up of communicators, marketers, former pharma-ad writers, medical and pharmacy schools, and doctors who have no influence from companies with profits as their sole motivation. However, Green suggests that such an organization could be funded through payments, but once again from fees attached to monies that pharmaceutical and medical device companies make to doctors (TEDx Talks, 2020b).

DTC Pharmaceuticals

In 2015, the US pharmaceutical industry spent $5.4 billion on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements. The U.S. is one of only 2 countries that legally allow DTC for drug companies. New Zealand is the other. Not coincidently, Americans pay more for drugs and medical devices than any other country in the world (Drugwatch, 2022).

Michelle Llamas, a Board Certified Patient Advocate (BCPA) has a long list of experience, but what makes her credible to this article is her almost a decade of medical writing and research experience. She is a trusted source for information on high-risk prescriptions, health conditions, drugs, and medical devices (Drugwatch, 2023).

Drug companies often invest billions of dollars in their attempts to promote off-labeling of their drugs and/or devices that are not approved for other uses by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Companies try to convince doctors to prescribe their brand-name drugs or devices, for uses other than their original approval. Additionally, drug companies sometimes create clinical trials focused on swaying doctors and educational courses to highlight expensive drugs for non-FDA-approved uses, despite having no scientific evidence of efficacy or safety. Drug and device companies spent in 2015, about $4 billion on television ads, and about $1.5 billion in magazine advertising. Radio, theaters, newspapers, billboards, and some other types of marketing took up an additional few million dollars. It paid off for these companies to advertise, as every dollar spent on advertising generated increased sales of prescription drugs by $4.40. Big pharmaceutical companies are willing to gamble on being fined for a few hundred million dollars, despite their product being found to cause adverse effects if they know that they can market a product that may generate billions of dollars in profit (Drugwatch, 2022). From a business perspective, this is a good business model. From an ethical perspective, this is downright criminal and inhumane.

Another area of concern is that the CDC often receives funding from the exact same pharmaceutical companies that it is tasked with regulating. The ASH Clinical News, a magazine for the American Society of Hematology, reported that the CDC Foundation received $79.6 million from companies like Pfizer, Biogen, and Merck between 2014 and 2018. The CDC responded that the agency doesn’t accept commercial support, but its own media office has stated that “the CDC claims its public-private partnerships are synergistic and beneficial” (CDC Pressed to Acknowledge Industry Funding, 2021).

FDA Allows Toxic Ingredients in the US, But Other Countries Ban Them

“The FDA has once again failed the public by ignoring the harmful effects of phthalates on our health,” said Kristina Sinclair, associate attorney at the Center for Food Safety. “The agency’s refusal to pay attention to scientific evidence will have detrimental health effects for years to come” (Earthjustice: FDA Approves Use of Toxic Chemicals Leaping Into Food and Beverages, (2023).

“Despite its nearly $7 billion annual operating budget, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) isn’t analyzing every shampoo or supplement on sale at your local drugstore. In fact, the FDA does not approve most cosmetics before they hit shelves—let alone assess how they’ll affect human health after years of regular use. This information vacuum has given rise to a network of nonprofits, consumer-protection groups, and independent scientists dedicated to informing the public about potential hazards lurking in their products.” (Ducharme, 2024).

Red Dye No. 3, brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, titanium dioxide, and other chemicals are banned in other countries, where the FDA allows these to be added to food products in the US (Worthington, 2024).

Don’t Burn Bridges With Your Future Employer

Lastly, I find it disturbing that there is a merry-go-round of employment where high-level pharmaceutical executives and directors of the FDA go to work for one another, whereas in other types of business, these interactions would be considered conflicts of interest. For this issue, I found that NPR, National Public Radio (considered a reputable news source) reported that from 2001 through 2010 about 27% of its FDA employees who approved cancer and hematology drugs, went on to work for the pharmaceutical companies. The potential conflict of interest here is that FDA employees may have a career goal of later working in the public sector at pharmaceutical companies that they are in charge of regulating. Will these FDA regulators give pharma companies the benefit of the doubt for their products or be more critical of them by using poor comparisons in drug studies? The article did bring up the idea that having former FDA officials on the pharmaceutical industry payroll can offer some benefits to the general public. Former FDA employees having knowledge of the drug approval process can help facilitate the processes and relevant research that needs to be completed, and where the most current pathways to approval are followed (Lupkin, 2016). Another more recent peer-reviewed article from the Stanford Law School addressed this exact issue in further detail (Karas, 2023). We all know these issues are wrong and continue to go along with the societal cognitive dissonance, hoping that it will all work out and the general population will be fine.

Be well, become healthier, and be wise. Do your research.

References:

American Medical Association & American Medical Association. (2020, September 15). Words and actions that erode trust in the CDC hurt us all. American Medical Association. https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/words-and-actions-erode-trust-cdc-hurt-us-all

Sun, L. H., & Achenbach, J. (2020, September 28). CDC’s credibility is eroded by internal blunders and external attacks as coronavirus vaccine campaigns loom. Washington Post. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A636718930/HWRC?u=vol_vsc&sid=bookmark-HWRC&xid=505e0540

CDC pressed to acknowledge industry funding. (2021, December 30). ASH Clinical News | American Society of Hematology. https://ashpublications.org/ashclinicalnews/news/4797/CDC-Pressed-to-Acknowledge-Industry-Funding

Lupkin, S. (2016, September 28). A look at how the revolving door spins from FDA to industry. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/09/28/495694559/a-look-at-how-the-revolving-door-spins-from-fda-to-industry

Karas, L. (2023). Fda’s Revolving Door: Reckoning and Reform. Stanford Law & Policy Review, 34(1), 1.

Drugwatch. (2022, November 21). Selling Side Effects – Big Pharma’s Marketing Machine. Drugwatch.com. https://www.drugwatch.com/featured/big-pharma-marketing/

Drugwatch. (2023, February 23). Michelle Llamas – Drugwatch Senior Writer. Drugwatch.com. https://www.drugwatch.com/authors/mllamas/

Jureidini, J. (2022, March 16). The illusion of evidence based medicine. The BMJ. https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o702

Staff Directory | Dr Jon Jureidini. (n.d.). https://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/jon.jureidini

TEDx Talks. (2020b, November 23). Why Drug Marketing Rules American Healthcare and What We Can Do About it | Lydia Green | TEDxMcphs. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh7rQbknPyE

Earthjustice: FDA Approves Use of Toxic Chemicals Leaping Into Food and Beverages. (2023, July 23). Targeted News Service, NA. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A758209943/STND?u=vol_vsc&sid=ebsco&xid=6ec0ba16

Ducharme, J. (2024). Scientists Are Finding Out Just How Toxic Your Stuff Is. Time.Com, N.PAG

Worthington, L. (2024, April 3). These common U.S. snack ingredients are banned or restricted abroad. Science. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/additives-artificial-flavors-us-snacks-banned

I teach and offer lectures about holistic health, stress management, qigong, tai chi, baguazhang, meditation, phytotherapy (herbs), music for healing, self-massage, and Daoyin (yoga).

Please contact me if you, your business, organization, or group, might be interested in hosting me to speak on a wide spectrum of topics relative to better health, wellness, and fitness.

I look forward to further sharing more of my message by partnering with hospitals, wellness centers, VA centers, schools on all levels, businesses and individuals that see the value in building a stronger nation through building a healthier population. I also have hundreds of FREE education video classes, lectures and seminars available on my YouTube channel at:

https://www.youtube.com/c/MindandBodyExercises

www.MindAndBodyExercises.com

www.Amazon.com/author/jimmoltzan

Mind and Body Exercises on Google: https://posts.gle/aD47Qo

Jim Moltzan

407-234-0119

Profit vs. Ethics in the Big Pharma View of Business

From a strictly financial perspective, it may be considered a good business strategy for a pharmaceutical company to generate billions of dollars in profits for a particular product, even if they end up paying millions of dollars in fines or lawsuits. However, this viewpoint does not take into account the ethical considerations and potential harm that may result from the company’s actions. We have seen this play out many times in recent years as some very large pharma corps have been fined substantial amounts, but are still allowed to operate and profit. I am not sure how this works exactly, so I did some research.

I would think that it is important for companies to operate with integrity and ethical principles, and to prioritize the safety and well-being of their customers. When companies engage in practices that result in harm or violate regulations, they may face legal consequences and negative publicity that can damage their reputation and erode public trust.

Furthermore, paying fines or settling lawsuits does not necessarily address the underlying issues that led to the misconduct in the first place. Companies should focus on improving their practices and ensuring that their products are safe and effective, rather than solely on maximizing profits. However, we all pretty much know that in the US world of healthcare, most of the money is gained in treating the sick rather than preventing illness. Money talks and bullshit walks.

In summary, while generating significant profits may be a goal for many companies, it is important to consider the ethical implications of their actions and prioritize the safety and well-being of their customers. Engaging in misconduct that results in fines or lawsuits may not be a sustainable or ethical business strategy in the long run. In spite of this concept, big pharma has done pretty well for itself, especially during the recent COVID-19 pandemic where record profits were reported, while being exempt from any liability from its mass distribution of products to counter its infection.

References:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223

https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2016/03/31/gsk-pfe-bms-nvs-pay-most-in-fines.html

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/features/these-were-the-biggest-pharmaceutical-deals-in-early-2022/

I write often about topics that affect our health and well-being. Additionally, I teach and offer lecture about qigong, tai chi, baguazhang, and yoga. I also have hundreds of FREE education video classes, lectures and seminars available on my YouTube channel at:

https://www.youtube.com/c/MindandBodyExercises

Mind and Body Exercises on Google: https://posts.gle/aD47Qo

Jim Moltzan

407-234-0119

www.MindAndBodyExercises.com

www.Amazon.com/author/jimmoltzan

All Working Together – The FDA, Big Pharma and US Academia – It’s All About the Money Baby!

Dr. Jon Jureidini is a child psychiatrist in Australia. He is part of the Critical and Ethical Mental Health (CEMH), which is a research group within the Robinson Research Institute. The CEMH conducts critical appraisal, meta-research, teaching, and advocacy, with the goal of promoting safer, more effective and more ethical research and practice in the field of mental health (Staff Directory | Dr Jon Jureidini, n.d.). Dr. Jon Jureidini reports that medicine is mostly dominated by a few very large and competing pharmaceutical companies, that are quite aligned in their methods to expand their profits. He reports on the issues of evidence-based medicine being compromised by the commercialization of academia, failed regulation and other corporate influences. This doctor sees the scientific progress being abused by the medical industry and its relationship with academic researchers, as they often do not share raw data, suppress negative trial results, and fail to report adverse events. Because of this, there is a greater potential for patient death, due to commercial interests influence upon regulators, research agenda, and universities. He strongly suggests that reforms need to be made in all of these areas, in order to bring trust and legitimacy back to evidence-based medicine. Jureidini calls for a separation of regulators from drug company funding, due to regulators often accept funding and industry funded trials in order to approve drugs that a particular company is trying to market (Jureidini, 2022).

Lydia Green, a pharmacist, and former pharmaceutical advertising copywriter speaks about her goals of decreasing the sway of influence of pharmaceutical marketing and misinformation on the American healthcare industry. America contributes only 5% to the population of the world yet spends 1/3 of the world’s $1.4 trillion pharmaceutical healthcare marketplace. In spite of spending the most, the US often ranks low on the overall health of its population. Medicine is all about the money, and a patient’s well-being maybe second. These pharmaceutical companies are businesses that at their root, just like all business, operate to make a profit. Again, it is all about the money. When healthcare and its relative components of pharmaceuticals, doctors, and the profits that both can gain from promoting their products, in spite of actual need – this whole system is severely corrupt and broken and in need of drastic reform. Green proposes a need for a 3^rd party agency to help return trust, in regard to the pharmaceutical industry. This alliance would be made up of communicators, marketers, former pharma-ad writers, medical and pharmacy schools, and doctors that have no influence from companies with profits as their sole motivation. However, Green suggests that such an organization could be funded through payments, but once again from fees attached to monies that pharmaceutical and medical device companies make to doctors (TEDx Talks, 2020b).

I found an article containing much information on how direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads for the US pharmaceutical industry, proliferated a $5.4 billion marketing campaign back in 2015. The U.S. is one of only 2 countries that legally allow DTC for drug companies. New Zealand is the other. Not coincidently, Americans pay more for drugs and medical devices than any other country in the world (Drugwatch, 2022). Michelle Llamas, a Board-Certified Patient Advocate (BCPA) has a long list of experience, but what makes her credible to this article is her almost a decade of medical writing and research experience. She is a trusted source for information on high-risk prescriptions, health conditions, drugs and medical devices (Drugwatch, 2023).

Drug companies often invest billions of dollars in their attempts to promote off-labeling of their drugs and/or devices that are not approved for other uses by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Companies try to convince doctors to prescribe their brand-name drugs or devices, for uses other than their original approval. Additionally, drug companies sometimes create clinical trials focused on swaying doctors and educational courses to highlight expensive drugs for non-FDA-approved uses, in spite of having no scientific evidence of efficacy nor safety. Drug and device companies spent in 2015, about $4 billion on television ads, and about $1.5 billion in magazine advertising. Radio, theaters, newspapers, billboards, and some other types of marketing took up an additional few million dollars. It paid off for these companies to advertise, as every dollar spent on advertising generated increased sales of prescription drugs by $4.40. Big pharmaceutical companies are willing to gamble on being fined for a few hundred million dollars, in spite of their product being found to cause adverse effects, if they know that they can market a product that may generate billions of dollars in profit (Drugwatch, 2022). From a business perspective, this is a good business model. From an ethics perspective, this is downright criminal and inhumane.

“The approval of rofecoxib (Vioxx) by the US Food and Drug Administration has led to the “single greatest drug safety catastrophe in the history of this country or the history of the world,” charged one of the agency’s own experts, Dr David Graham, in US Senate hearings last Thursday.

Dr Graham, associate director in the FDA’s Office of Drug Safety, said an estimated 88,000 to 139,000 Americans had heart attacks and strokes as a result of taking rofecoxib. The number, he said, far exceeds earlier disasters such as the 100 children killed in the United States by an elixir of sulfanilamide in the 1930s and the 5000 to 10,000 children born in the 1960s with birth defects related to thalidomide. Both events led to sweeping regulatory changes in the United States.”

A forthcoming article for the special issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (JLME), edited by Marc Rodwin and supported by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, presents evidence that about 90 percent of all new drugs approved by the FDA over the past 30 years are little or no more effective for patients than existing drugs.

References:

Lenzer J. (2004). FDA is incapable of protecting US “against another Vioxx”. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 329(7477), 1253. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.329.7477.1253

Risky Drugs: Why The FDA Cannot Be Trusted. (2013, July 17). Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics. https://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/risky-drugs-why-fda-cannot-be-trusted

Hidden conflicts? Pharma payments to FDA advisers after drug approvals spark ethical concerns. (2023, February 22). Science | AAAS. https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-conflicts-pharma-payments-fda-advisers-after-drug-approvals-spark-ethical

Drugwatch. (2022, November 21). Selling Side Effects – Big Pharma’s Marketing Machine. Drugwatch.com. https://www.drugwatch.com/featured/big-pharma-marketing/Links to an external site.

Drugwatch. (2023, February 23). Michelle Llamas – Drugwatch Senior Writer. Drugwatch.com. https://www.drugwatch.com/authors/mllamas/Links to an external site.

Jureidini, J. (2022, March 16). The illusion of evidence based medicine. The BMJ. https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o702Links to an external site.

Staff Directory | Dr Jon Jureidini. (n.d.). https://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/jon.jureidiniLinks to an external site.

TEDx Talks. (2020b, November 23). Why Drug Marketing Rules American Healthcare and What We Can Do About it | Lydia Green | TEDxMcphs. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh7rQbknPyE

https://www.youtube.com/c/MindandBodyExercises

Mind and Body Exercises on Google: https://posts.gle/aD47Qo

Jim Moltzan

407-234-0119

www.MindAndBodyExercises.com

www.Amazon.com/author/jimmoltzan

Natural immunity to COVID ‘at least as high, if not higher’ than that from mRNA vaccine, study finds

Not that long ago, even suggesting that natural immunity from previous COVID-19 infection would label someone as anti-vax, uninformed, selfish, a conspiracy theorist and many other derogatory terms. Now, just recently as of February 16, 2023 a medical review published in The Lancet, and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, J Stanton, T Gillespie, and J and E Nordstrom, suggests that the data and the “science” support that natural immunity to COVID ‘at least as high, if not higher’ than that from mRNA vaccine. Most recently, mainstream media news sources such as MSN, CBS, WebMD and Newsweek have finally found this idea to be somewhat newsworthy and reported their own perspective on this highly controversial subject.

The natural immunity provided by a COVID infection protects a person against severe illness on a par with two doses of mRNA vaccine, a new study says. People who’ve been infected with COVID reduced their chances of hospitalization and death by 88% over 10 months compared to somebody who hasn’t been infected, says the study, published in The Lancet (Ellis, 2023).

“Our findings show that immunity from COVID-19 infection confers substantial protection against infection from pre-omicron variants. By comparison, protection against re-infection from the omicron BA.1 variant was substantially reduced and wanes rapidly over time. Protection against severe disease, although based on scarce data, was maintained at a relatively high level up to 1 year after the initial infection for all variants. Our analysis suggests that the level of protection from past infection by variant and over time is at least equivalent if not greater than that provided by two-dose mRNA vaccines.” (Stein et al., 2023)

References:

MSN. (n.d.). https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/natural-immunity-to-covid-at-least-as-high-if-not-higher-than-that-from-mrna-vaccine-study-finds/ar-AA17CrCZ

Stein, C., Nassereldine, H., Sorensen, R. J. D., Amlag, J. O., Bisignano, C., Byrne, S., Castro, E., Coberly, K., Collins, J. K., Dalos, J., Daoud, F., Deen, A., Gakidou, E., Giles, J. R., Hulland, E. N., Huntley, B. M., Kinzel, K. E., Lozano, R., Mokdad, A. H., . . . Lim, S. S. (2023, February 1). Past SARS-CoV-2 infection protection against re-infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet; Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(22)02465-5

Norton, T. (2023, February 17). Fact Check: Did Study Find COVID Infection Just as Effective as Vaccine? Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-study-find-covid-infection-just-effective-vaccine-1782099

Ellis, R. (2023, February 17). COVID Infection Provides Immunity Equal to Vaccination: Study. WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20230217/covid-infection-provides-immunity-equal-to-vaccination-study

CBS New York. (2023, February 17). COVID-19 infection offers strong protection against reinfection for about 10 months, study finds. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/covid-19-infection-natural-immunity-reinfection/

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