Trump MAY Be Shaking Things Up at the FDA

Last week, Bloomberg News reported that President-elect Trump is considering Jim O’Neill as the new FDA commissioner.
O’Neill is a Silicon Valley investor, libertarian, and associate of Peter Thiel, a billionaire who supported Donald Trump. O’Neill previously worked for the Department of Health and Human Services in the George W. Bush administration. News reports say that O’Neill would be an “unconventional” pick because he isn’t a physician and has little scientific background. This could be a good thing, considering the problematic ties to the pharmaceutical industry of current and past FDA commissioners. The appointment of an FDA chief who isn’t in the pocket of Big Pharma is a welcome development.
In addition, O’Neill has signaled a desire to reform and overhaul the FDA—which is at the core of ANH-USA’s mission. In 2014 O’Neil spoke to a regenerative medicine group where he said, “Every time the FDA commissioner approves something and someone gets sick who used it, the commissioner is summoned to a congressional committee that also controls his budget and forced to testify under oath, why he made this rash decision.…It’s a miserable process.”
Nothing is final yet. Stay tuned.
 
Other articles in this week’s Pulse of Natural Health:
Want Holes in Your Stomach? Eat More GMOs
Is Lead Causing Criminal Behavior?

26 comments

  1. I wouldn’t expect any better of a Trump FDA head than I do in any of his other appointments. They are all big corporations and military. I only see a fight between corporate groups among themselves for increasing their wealth and control.

    1. tamarque, – You can’t make changes- complete- transitions – over night…I’m thinking.
      I know what you’re talking about – with these appointments, but I’m giving Trump a chance. – He’s the one that said to clean the swamp. He’s the one that neither likes nor accepts campaign contributions.
      I say – let’s wait & see what he has up his sleeve.

      1. OMG–what a major disappointment you reveal yourself to be. I always the work of the ANH until you brought a classist Libertarian on board. And even then I took a wait and see attitude to if he could/would keep his politics out of his contributions. But your comment reveals very questionable understandings on your part. First, let me point out that you cannot judge someone according to your wishful thinking. And that is the best I can say about your position. Second, the man is a blatant liar. He panders to the public on an emotional level saying anything that will get them riled up without there being one iota of fact or program offered. That includes a vague statement about questioning the FDA. Second, and most importantly, this man has decades long history to look at to see how he functions and what he believes in. His history is nasty when it comes to anyone except himself. He is a business crook, a liar, someone who grew up trained in supporting the KKK and neo-nazis. The list goes on. And third, and critically, he IS the swamp. He is a corporatist all the way. What makes him different than any other corporatist? Look at every one of his appointees. Which one would go to bed with! Everyone of them has a history of supporting war, imprisonment, torture, Wall St, the Big banks, etc.
        What you don’t see is that his not taking money, as far as we know so far, from some corporations only means that he will feel no compunction to promote his fascist, unConstitutional agenda. All that we are seeing if an in fight betw different corporate groups for power with the fascists rapidly climbing this country’s political and economic ladder.
        I, personally, am extremely fearful with a person whose working agenda is destruction of wages, imprisonment for profit, outsourcing of jobs (the Carrier deal is a sham and should expose his lying nature), etc. Last week he spoke about declaring free speech Economic Terrorism so he could imprison people who disagreed with him. That is who he is–one over grown, over rated disgusting human being. But you seem to think because he made a single vague statement about the FDA and has ‘some concerns about vaccines’ this means anything real and are willing hang your hat on him.
        Let me suggest you study some real history. While I agree the Dems are equally in bed with corporations, they will typically bend toward the people on various issues. Trump wants to kill Roe v Wade. He would solidify Citizens United whereas the Dems would be much more likely to support a Supreme court to protect Roe and kill the fascist Citizen’s United. The Dems have an arm of the party, that would secure Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, public housing and not openly seek to destroy public education. But if you support the Libertarian mythology of a pure capitalism that can ever be humanistic, then there is no way that you will see the rising stench rising up around Trump and his cohorts–not until he comes for you as an Economic Terrorist for talk trashing drug corporations.

  2. The f.d.a. has been nothing but a source of income for overpaid bureaucrats who receive gifts$$$$ to approve Big Pharma’s dangerous drugs (chemicals). The f.d.a. has nothing to do with protecting the public but is rather another collection agency for pay offs from Big Pharma. Everyone knows that politicians are already bought and paid for by Big Pharma and that the politicians assure that the f.d.a. never disapproves drugs (chemicals) which would adversely affect the billions flowing into their coffers from the sale of frequently dangerous drugs.

  4. Not only does the FDA support Big Pharma, they support GMOs. What seems like eons ago, an attorney from Monsanto got appointed as a special adviser to the then FDA director. The attorney assured the director that there was no difference between GMOed food and regular food. The director approved the first GMOs based on that advice and against the advice of FDA staff. Once the deal was done, the attorney went back to Monsanto. There used to be a comprehensive entry on this episode at Wikipedia but last time I checked, it was obvious that all the GMO entries had been written by shills. And the start of the whole sordid, sorry business had been deleted. So anything President-Elect Trump can do to shake up that agency would be much appreciated to those of us who care about what goes into our bodies. Neither FDA nor USDA have the best interests of USA citizens or their pets in mind when important decisions are made.

    1. Seriously! You think Trump has the best interest of the USA citizens and not the for profit special interests? Maybe take a closer look.

      1. Ron we do not really know yet what Trump will actually do. Meanwhile it sure is getting tiresome at having so many anti-Trumpists wager guesses based on nothing they know yet!

        1. ManagedByCat,- I entirely agree. Also, what may have been an appointee’s past agenda, may not be his future agenda, under Trump.

      2. Seriously, do you think Hillary would be even half as good? She made one of her hundreds of thousands of dollars speeches for Monsanto. No obligation there, right? She also gave them suggestions on better marketing strategy for GMO’s. She’s a real loser. Give Trump a chance.

        2. No Bruce, we know there wouldn’t be much hope with Hillary. But former Goldman Sachs executive as Treasury Sec.? and climate change denier Pruit to head EPA? Lesser of the two evils? Not sayin much.

    2. Right, ManagedByCat. – The FDA & USDA have WORST interests in mind – for citizens, & should be out of the picture & replaced by agencies of competence & honesty, – serving only in an advisory capacity.

  5. I’ve had a grudge against the FDA ever since they took away the best asthma treatment I had–an herbal mixture including natural ephedra. Synthetic ephedra is what caused the problems that precipitated this, but you can still get pseudofed. But the natural kind which saved me from much misery while pregnant and suffering attacks, is now forbidden. They also won’t approve effective remedies that have been used safely for decades in other countries without those expensive clinical trials, which no one will do if they can’t make a huge profit. So we are deprived of inexpensive and effective medicines. Bah humbug to the FDA!

    3. Carol, please look into Global Healing Center, Dr. Group. You can call them for advise, get on their website and seek help there. They are fantastic.

  6. Then why do so many congressmen support and receive support from Monsanto. The Bushes, the Clintons and Obama have fully supported Monsanto and the United States Eugenics Program. http://useugenics.FarTooMuch.Info … My first choice for the head of the FDA would have been Russell Blaylock MD. He is an expert in the poisoning of us by our government.

    1. Blaylock would be a much more realistic choice for head of FDA–if you really wanted to promote health instead of greed and control. Dennis Kucinich would be another choice for someone who really has the public’s interest at heart if you were to go outside the field of ‘science’ for someone.

        1. JRuss,-I found .FarTooMuch.Info, but not that subdomain. FTMI doesn’t take me anywhere, unless I click the google? (spy), but when viewing it, I didn’t see a connection.

  7. It can’t get any worse, so I hope the entire agency is revamped and replaced by people who care about the health of the populace and not the health of the pharma industry.

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