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Cassidy was in that category as he was a major pusher of Hep B vaccines for little kids and the one guy making demands on HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He wanted to see him twice a month to make sure he toed the line with the childhood vax schedule for babies.
Trump helped push Cassidy out in a recent primary because he voted with the Democrats in the second impeachment involving the dubious January 6th event at the Capitol.
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During the Trump Republican administration, being a Trump-hating Republican isn’t going to work out.
But being a co-opted stooge for the pharmaceutical companies is worse and many top Congressional leaders have the same baggage. This is rarely exposed as such, since the media itself has also been co-opted. After all, the US is only one of two countries in the world to allow pharmaceutical firms to advertise prescription drugs on radio and TV. The amount of money spent for all TV advertising including streaming and ancillary outlets may be as high as $39 billion for all pharma. The specific DTC (direct to consumer) ads for prescription drugs is at least $10 billion.
This is a concentrated effort, as you can see for yourself by watching any network news show. The pharma companies target news shows as a mechanism to prevent any “investigative” meddling into what they’re up to. No reporter in their right mind is going to do any sort of investigation of drug company influence on politics, doctors, or the media. It would be a career killer. Let someone else do it.
This is called “capture.” The entire media is captured by big pharma. “Co-opted” is an older term for the same thing.
This only ends when the leverage of big pharma ends and that means the end of advertising. But who is going to promote that? The media companies love the $39 billion to add to the bottom line here and there, so they will not be complaining anytime soon. So what if they cannot do a good job and end up corrupted by the money? So what?
And with Congress also bought off, they are not going to let the gravy train stop. If HHS Secretary Kennedy tries to do something, he’ll be attacked. It’s up to Trump but there is no sign that he cares about any of it. Despite Trump’s contentious relationship with the mainstream media and despite the fact that killing pharma advertising would damage the media, he relents.
And this doesn’t help the public with the life expectancy of Americans falling behind Japan, Switzerland, South Korea, Australia, Italy, Canada, France, Germany, and even the UK. All while spending much more on healthcare then any of those countries.
None of those countries that outperform the US allows big pharma to advertise prescriptions drugs on TV. Coincidence? I think not. — JCD
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Illustration by Darren O’Neill
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