Do your senators support crony medicine?
Last week, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve the nomination of Dr. Robert Califf as FDA Commissioner.
The final tally was 89 “yea” votes, seven abstentions—and only four “no” votes. The four were Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Ed Markey (D-MA).
Presidential candidates Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) did not vote, nor did Bob Corker (R-TN), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), or Mark Warner (D-VA).
Califf’s ties to the pharmaceutical industry are well documented. He ran a clinical research center at Duke University that received the majority of its multimillion dollar budget from Big Pharma. According to financial disclosures from last year, Dr. Califf received money for consulting with at least seven drug and medical device companies, and six other companies supported his university salary including Merck, Novartis, and Eli Lilly. The conflict-of-interest section of a paper he wrote for the European Heart Journal last year lists financial support from more than twenty companies.
The importance of this decision cannot be understated. According to the New York Times, the FDA regulates a quarter of every dollar spent in the United States—and now Big Pharma has its person in this immensely powerful position. It is a great victory for crony medicine—and a major setback for everyone else.
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I am NOT surprised at the Yea nominations. Our political leaders are all bought for and paid for my BIG MURDEROUS PHARMA!!!
The problem is, as this almost unanimous vote shows, that big pharma, the big banks, Wall street, Monsanto, etc., own both political parties. Hence, only the political revolution senator Sanders proposes can eliminate this fundamental corruption of our system of government. Replacing one party with the other through elections makes no difference.
People must stop voting for those taking money from corporations….this is a travesty …and shows again why the people are cheated over and over again…this FDA Asshat will only hurt America further we can see his agenda before he even begins…
It would seem that the only way left for us to vote is with our wallets. That’s why those same big corporations (Big Oil, Agriculture, Pharma, Chemo, and Banking/Securities) that love to gloat whenever the “free market” works in their favor, attempt to manipulate it, and us, when it doesn’t. According to their way of thinking, only the rich and powerful are entitled to an opinion, but from anyone else such is mere insubordination. Future history will doubtless reveal that as evil as Big Tobacco was revealed to be in the 1990s, it will pale in comparison to the eventual revelations concerning Big Oil, Agriculture, Pharma, Chemo, and Banking/Securities. So buy local and save up for things whenever you can instead of resorting to credite, so that the securities and loan parasites cannot bask in a life of leisure at the expense of the rest of us toiling away in perpetual indentured servitude. There’s a good reason their buildings often dominate the skylines of major metropolitan areas.