Three Ways the Next President Should Tackle Big Pharma

By Amy Kelly and Naomi Wolf

     Soon, we will either have elected the first female US President; or we will have re-elected a man written off by the Establishment. If the latter, this President will re-enter the White House with lawyer and Big Pharma critic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. overseeing the Transition. Either winner will lead a nation awake to the dangers of the pharmaceutical complex. We have learned that the checks and balances we had assumed ensure that only safe drugs get approved do not exist.

     From readers of RFK, Jr.’s bestseller The Real Anthony Fauci, which exposed royalties enriching government employees who align with pharma companies, to the parents declining HPV vaccines for their kids for safety reasons, to New Yorkers surprised that Bill di Blasio urged them to get COVID vaccines alongside free French fries, to those aware that our tax dollars pay for weight loss drug Ozempic  -- Americans don’t have to be “anti-vaxxers” to feel that Big Pharma reform is needed. 

     What actions can a new President take to ensure this?

1/ Repeal the PREP Act.

Some legislation seems great at first but proves to be destructive, such as the 2005 PREP (Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness) Act.  

This Act lets HHS provide immunity to drug companies from liability. 

Thus, pharmaceutical “countermeasures” – some drugs -- are not like automobiles, trampolines, or McDonald’s hot coffee. You cannot sue the manufacturer. 

      HHS designated the “free French fries” COVID-19 vaccines as "medical countermeasures.”

     To extend the injection’s protections, HHS Secretary Becerra amended the PREP Act during COVID. 

  While that was happening, thousands of people sustained COVID vaccine injuries, even as our health agencies assured us that they were “safe and effective.”

     To this day, the injured can’t sue. Imagine a PREP Act equivalent for the automobile industry. If a car malfunctioned, injuring you or killing a loved one, you would have nowhere to turn. 

       The PREP Act gives paltry options to those who do get hurt: the  Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program.    

      As of October 1, 2024, only 17 COVID-19 vaccine injury compensations have been paid out under this program – totaling only $437,704.95.  

     Is the program adequate? Far from it. 

     "The CICP appears to be grossly underfunded according to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) operating plan […].” 

     Essentially, the compensation program is set up to fail Big Pharma victims.

     It must go.

2/    The next President must campaign to repeal the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

      President Ronald Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 into law. NCVIA promotes arbitration, rather than litigation, for vaccine injury claims, thus protecting vaccine manufacturers from financial liability. It established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which created a Pharma-friendly no-fault Federal system for compensating vaccine-related injuries or deaths via the Court of Federal Claims and “special masters.” 

       The VICP also needs a complete overhaul to better help those seeking compensation for injuries. Since 1988, over 27,808 petitions have been filed.  Only 11,315 were “compensable” while 12,840 were dismissed.    

     This program is failing those claiming injury from pharmaceutical products.

3. The next President must close the revolving door between Big Pharma and government agencies.

         “Revolving door” is a cliché, but it is a useful one. 

     The former 23rd commissioner of the FDA, Scott Gottlieb, is now on the Board at Pfizer. 

     Former HHS Secretary Alex Azar was president of Lilly USA.

     From 2004-2020, 15 percent of those appointed to HHS came from private industry; when they finished at HHS, 32 percent took jobs in private industry: “The greatest net exits to industry were from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services." 

     The FDA has a revolving door: "Science has found that…regular employees at the agency…often reap later rewards—jobs or consulting work—from the makers of the drugs they previously regulated."

     Why should we assume that these industry foxes will guard the henhouse effectively?

Why am I following these issues? I got involved via our project, the WarRoom/DailyClout Pfizer Documents Analysis. This grassroots research project united 3,250 doctors and scientists to read 450,000 pages of Pfizer documents released 2021-2024 via court order. The FDA wanted them hidden for 75 years.

     These volunteers produced the 34 reports in The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity. They broke headlines about damages from this “countermeasure,” including harms to women and babies. 

     Why were unpaid volunteers breaking stories that traditional media and medical journals could not break?

     Volunteers in a crowdsourced project are unaffected by the corruptions that now afflict “the Science.”

     Universities are not free to go where the evidence takes them. HHS provides universities more money than does tuition: “(HHS) is the largest federal source of funding for research and development…at universities.” HHS gave universities $44 billion in 2022. 

     Are peer-reviewed medical journals the gold standard for evaluating “the science”? No. Children’s Health Defense found that “Pharma Paid $1.06 Billion to Reviewers at Top Medical Journals”.

     So independent researchers are freer than their institutional counterparts to follow the evidence. 

     The next President has a tall order in reforming Big Pharma. 

     Indeed, universities, medical journals, and “the Science” industries all need reforms. I believe we can do this. With good leadership, the nation and our institutions can course-correct once again.