FDA corrupted by big pharma and food industries - who happily kill millions for profit

By: Joel v.d. Reijden | Date: May 4, 2024 | Health Center.

Contents

"18.4% [of FDA scientists] said that they have been asked, "for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information, or conclusions based on that data, in an FDA scientific document.""

2006 survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists. 1 Nothing is ever as it seems though: this group was funded by "liberal CIA" conduits as the Ford and MacArthur foundations in yet another move to discredit the Bush government.

"[1907-1912 1st Commissioner of Food and Drugs] Harvey Wiley studied sugar chemistry in Germany and it was this expertise that won him the appointment in Washington as Chief Chemist in the Department of Agriculture.

"Shortly after passage of the 1906 [Pure Food and Drug] Act, James S. Sherman, future Vice President of the U.S., then representing Sherman Brothers, a food manufacturing firm in New York, was granted an audience with [right-wing, robber baron-tied] President [Teddy] Roosevelt to discuss ... Wiley's opposition to his firm's use of saccharin in canned corn. [Wiley had] concluded from the bureau's "poison squad" studies, that saccharin was deleterious to health. [But President Teddy Roosevelt told him:] "Anybody who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot."

"The following day, the President appointed a Referee Board of Consulting Scientific Experts [under] Johns Hopkins professor Dr. Ira Remsen, [who] had discovered saccharin, [which gave] a pardon ... in their re-assessment of its safety."

FDA leadership stood under pressure from government and big business from the very start. 2

Before the 1906 Act, there was no labeling or control over food products, resulting in them being laced with substances as cocaine, formaldehyde, alcohol, corn syrup - without anyone knowing. Up to 90% of honey, jam and maple syrup, for example, was fake: just cheap corn syrup, in case of honey with a honeycomb in it for deceptive purposes.

Intro

While writing the main 'Health and Nutrition' article, I would regularly run into heavily upvoted YouTube and Reddit comments along the lines of:

"If the FDA banned it, it must be working."

Comments like these can be funny, but I never knew what to make of the claims that the FDA is a corrupt organization. I started getting suspicious reading all the valid criticism with regard to artificial sweeteners in particular, also seeing the influence of globalist multinationals in the background. But I wasn't quite ready to make the leap that the FDA is a "corrupt organization".

^NAC's attempted banning during COVID in 2022

It wasn't really upon reading that the FDA since early 2022 - during the COVID-19 crisis - has been trying to find ways to ban the extremely safe and useful N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) supplement 3, that I started to suspect something is really off with the FDA's policies. As readers can read in the NAC entry on the 'Health and Nutrition' page, this is an extremely useful supplement to many people, in particular to those affected by sinus and lung issues - as a lot of people with COVID infections have. NAC literally cured my own (apparently) bleeding upper intestines over March-April 2024. Banning it, without any indication it has adverse health effects, is just an open display of crookedness.

So I started to look into the FDA. While this whole section still is preliminary, it's pretty shocking to realize just how corrupted the FDA has been by the usual globalist pharmaceutical and food production companies: Monsanto, Merck, Pfizer - you name it. And it is clear that if these companies fear a competitor enough, that they can drive the FDA to very extreme measures.

Let's take a look.

Vioxx: 50,000 people killed for profit over 1999-2004

In September 2004 Merck announced that it would take NSAID medicine Vioxx off the market due to a "potential" increase in heart attacks. It had first been released in 1999 and was generating several billion dollars in annual revenues.

The main problem is that already in May 2000 there had been a crisis meeting at Merck headquarters where company executives and marketing managers decided against taking any action over the so-called Vioxx Gastrointestinal Outcomes Research trial (VIGOR) that was underway showing Vioxx patients had five times more heart attacks than patients using the rival Naproxen medicine. 4 In 2001 Merck rejected a study suggested by the Cleveland Clinic involving "Vioxx in patients with severe chest pain." The doctor in question assumed Merck rejected the study, because it was fearful that the heart attack dangers of the drug would be reaffirmed:

"If they internally thought this drug was safe in patients with heart disease, there was no reason not to do it." 5

In the same period, Merck refused other requests and demands to study the drug's heart "concerns", and sent representatives to convince critical scientists from publishing their damning research. 6 In August 2004 yet another study, from Kaiser Permanente, also showed a heightened heart attack rate, the average rate of studies eventually settling at 3.7 times higher. 7 Hence, the situation became untenable, resulting in Merck "voluntarily" withdrawing the drug from the market in September 2004.

The role of the FDA was just as questionable in the affair. On September 17, 2001, Merck received a letter from the FDA, not to inform Merck that Vioxx needed to be withdrawn from the market, but that Merck should refrain from underplaying Vioxx's heart attack "side effect". 8 Furthermore, in April 2002 Merck received permission from the FDA to market the drug for migraine and rheumatoid arthritis, as long it would list the heart attack findings from the VIGOR trial as a "side effect".

It also came out that Pfizer was no different than Merck. Not only did Merck not allow Vioxx to be additionally researched, Pfizer refused to do the same with its competing NSAID Celebrex, also after indications it heightened heart attacks. 9 It too was scolded by the FDA for ignoring these dangers in its marketing campaigns. 10 After the Vioxx affair came out, a Dr. Curt D. Furberg stated that his removal from an FDA advisory committee had not been so much the result of him publicly speaking out against the Pfizer COX-2 inhibitor drug Bextra, but because his team "showed that Bextra is no different than Vioxx, and Pfizer is trying to suppress that information." 11

The scandal got worse all the time. Congressional testimonies ensued, among them the following one on November 14, 2004. It was provided by Dr. David Graham, an officer in the FDA's Office of Drug Safety who was tasked with producing an FDA report on Vioxx's safety:

"A study report describing this work was put on the FDA website on election day [with George W. Bush running for reelection]. Among many things, this report estimated that nearly 28,000 excess cases of heart attack or sudden cardiac death were caused by Vioxx. I emphasize to the Committee that this is an extremely conservative estimate. ... A more realistic ... estimate ranges from 88,000 to 139,000 Americans. Of these, 30-40% [30,000-55,000] probably died. ... Dr. Eric Topol at the Cleveland Clinic recently estimated up to 160,000 cases of heart attacks and strokes due to Vioxx, in an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine. ...

"I was pressured to change my conclusions and recommendations, and basically threatened that if I did not change them, I would not be permitted to present the [Vioxx] paper at the conference. One Drug Safety manager recommended that I should be barred from presenting the poster at the meeting, and also noted that Merck needed to know our study results [in advance].

"An email from the Director for the entire Office of New Drugs, was revealing. He suggested that since FDA was “not contemplating” a warning against the use of high-dose Vioxx, my conclusions should be changed. CDER [the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research] and the [FDA's] Office of New Drugs have repeatedly expressed the view that ODS [Office of Drug Safety] should not reach any conclusions or make any recommendations that would contradict what the Office of New Drugs wants to do or is doing.

"Even more revealing, a mere 6 weeks before Merck pulled Vioxx from the market, CDER, OND and ODS management did not believe there was an outstanding safety concern with Vioxx. At the same time, 2-4 jumbo jetliners [in heart attack deaths] were dropping from the sky every week and no one else at FDA was concerned." 12

Graham congressional report also included the email proof that both senior Merck and FDA leadership were continually pressuring, lobbying, and bullying lower level personnel with the aim of retracting all kinds of critical and observational statements in their reports. In one example, in that manner "cause of death: heart attack" became "cause of death: unknown", a bureaucratic trick that saved Merck from "a terrible situation" early on in its Vioxx adventure. 13

One persons implicated in these pressuring tactics was Edward M. Scolnick, Merck's top scientist from 1985 to 2003, who in an email "said he would personally pressure senior officials at the [FDA] agency if it took action unfavorable to Vioxx." 14 Officially, Scolnick served in the positions of "president of Merck Research Laboratories; executive vice president for science and technology at Merck & Co., Inc.; executive director and vice president in the department of virus and cell biology and senior vice president for basic research at Merck Research Laboratories." 15 His career never was impacted. Starting in 2004, and continuing all the way to at least 2024, Scolnick served as "a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and chief scientist emeritus of Broad's Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research." 16

Over at the FDA, Dr. Sandra Kweder, who was one of those demeaning concerns of drug safety officer Dr. David Graham about Vioxx and delaying his report on the drug, was implicated. 17 At the time, from 2002, she served as the deputy director of the Office of New Drugs (OND) in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). As if there was no affair at all, she continued in that position until 2016, guiding "OND through a phase of substantial maturation". 18 After that, she was promoted to deputy director of the FDA's Europe Office and liaison to the European Medicines Agency (EMA), eventually ending up at the FDA's Office of Global Strategy and Policy in the early 2020s. 19

Despite no one getting punished and Merck never admitting any fault, the Vioxx affair continued until November 2007, when Merck settled for $4.85 billion with 47,000 plaintiffs and about 265 potential class-action lawsuits. 20

More on FDA corruption

In the mean time, additional scrutiny also fell on the FDA, because the manner in which it was helping Merck essentially commit genocide with its Vioxx drug, only giving it a little token resistance, really revealed very systematic corruption at the FDA.

In January and February 2006 the Union of Concerned Scientists, as part of its Scientific Integrity Program Public, together with Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), approached 5,918 FDA scientists with a list of questions.

If these groups sound like yet another "liberal CIA" "get Bush" project, you'd be right. The surveys were part of a government wide program, and a quick check reveals the usual Ford, Hewlett, MacArthur, and Flora Family foundations were among the financiers of the Union of Concerned Scientists in the period that this survey took place. It is such an important, fresh find, it has instantly been added to ISGP's "liberal CIA" oversight. PEER has always been smaller and more obscure, but also there typical "liberal CIA" foundation funding can quickly be spotted. 21

In any case, of the 997 FDA scientists who replied:

1. 81% agreed, and only 6% disagreed, with the statement: "The public would be better served if the independence and authority of FDA post-market product safety systems were strengthened."


2. 70% disagreed that the "FDA has sufficient resources to effectively perform its mission of “protecting the public health..."


3. 47% confirmed - with only 32% denying - that they knew: "of cases where commercial interests have inappropriately induced or attempted to induce the reversal, withdrawal or modification of FDA determinations or actions." As for HHS and FDA "political appointees": 43% confirmation. And as for Congressional members and NGO "advocacy groups": both at 39% confirmation.


4. 44% disagreed, with another 13% (57% total) having no opinion, to the statement: "I respect the integrity and professionalism of FDA leadership."


5. 32% disagreed and 53% did "not agree" with the statement: "FDA routinely provides complete and accurate information to the public."


6. 22% agreed with the statement: "I feel that FDA decision makers implicitly expect me to provide incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information to the public, regulated community, media, or elected/senior government officials."


7. 19% agreed with the statement: "I have been asked explicitly by FDA decision makers to provide incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information to the public, regulated industry, media, or elected/senior government officials."


8. 15% admitted they had been asked, "for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information, or conclusions based on that data, in an FDA scientific document." 22

This survey revealed that a lot of people within the FDA, and quite possibly mainly people in senior positions, had been dealing with similar corruption issues as Dr. David Graham described and proved to parliament in November 2004.

The FDA keeping Stevia banned

All of it raises the question exactly how much influence multinationals actually have over the FDA, because it is clear they have a whole lot. The FDA keeping the natural non-caloric Stevia sweetener banned as much as it could between 1991 and 2008, all had to do with Monsanto and other artificial sweetener production companies pressuring the FDA to do so.

The FDA didn't even have the right to ban Stevia, because its statutes since the 1958 Congressional Food Additives Amendment read that any "substance used in food prior to January 1, 1958, [that is determined] through either scientific procedures or experience based on common use in food to be safe under the conditions of its intended use." 23 Stevia has been used for thousands of years in Latin America and its use in the United States went back further than 1958, without any safety complaints. It ignored its own statutes and still did so based on an "anonymous trade complaint". The FDA always refused to disclose which company filed the complaint, but we do know that by 1987 the forever-notorious Monsanto corporation, "the makers of NutraSweet, a widely used synthetic sweetener, asked the FDA to require testing of ... stevia." 24 So Stevia was banned by the FDA in 1991 - illegally. Also not with any good reason. The FDA purely based itself on a few old, flawed studies and went:

"The tests weren't very good; it was hard to tell what was even tested. But there weren't any good ones either. It was really the lack of studies that raised alarms." 25

Critics immediately countered that at least 180 studies in England, Japan, and Brazil, all of which found stevia safe. 26 Within a year, the FDA was confronted with 900 studies, all showing that Stevia was safe. Despite that, the FDA still refused to allow Stevia back onto the market. Only due to the 1994 Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act, which prevented the FDA from any food supplement not proved to be unsafe, was the FDA forced to allow Stevia back onto the market. But it only allowed it as a supplement. It kept banning it from the general food supply, in contrast to all the toxic artificial competitors: aspartame, acesulfame, sucralose, and saccharin.

In 1998, the FDA halted shipments to a Texas-based company called Stevita, which sold stevia as a legitimate supplement alongside various stevia "cookbooks". The FDA effectively ordered the company out of business by ordering to burn all its stevia books and stop the selling of supplements. Only after the media started asking questions, did the FDA slowly back off. It did not allow the selling of the "cookbooks" though. 27

It wasn't until May 2008, when Cargill, Merisant, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi indicated to the FDA they were no looking to create their own stevia products, the the FDA suddenly released the sweetener to the food market. 28

Clearly Stevia was one of these "hold the line" subjects for the globalist multinationals in questions. If big interests really feel threatened, the corruption very quickly and very visibly rises to the surface. Even into the 2020s, and in Europe, it is quite odd why almost all multinational food-producing companies prefer the toxic, gut-destroying sucralose, or acesulfame, or the controversial aspartame, over Stevia. You really have to look hard for any Stevia products.

It boggles the mind. Some people online claim that Stevia still gives them migraines. And there may be some studies demonstrating there could be some risk to the gut microbiome - maybe. The author would have to re-research that subject too. But overall, Stevia is a much better alternative than all other artificial sweeteners. As one scientists summarized:

"Few substances have ever yielded such consistently negative results in toxicity trials as have stevia. Almost every toxicity test imaginable has been performed on stevia extract [concentrate] or stevioside at one time or another. The results are always negative. No abnormalities in weight change, food intake, cell or membrane characteristics, enzyme and substrate utilization, or chromosome characteristics. No cancer, no birth defects, no acute and no chronic untoward effects. Nothing." 29

It's also strange the European Union banned Stevia as a food additive between 1999 and 2011, looking for yet more research with regard to its safety. Why demand it for Stevia? But at the same time allow all this self-produced, "ghost-written" 30, crooked research on artificial sugars that its CFR- and Trilateral-tied multinationals have been putting out as "proof" that these products are "safe"? And what is up with rapeseed oil in the European Union in literally thousands of products? There's not single study out there demonstrating its safety.

^Notes

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1. August 25, 2006, Oncology Times, 'Survey of FDA Scientists Shows They Feel Pressure to Exclude or Alter Findings Fear Retaliation for Voicing Safety Concerns'.
2. July-Aug. 2003, official FDA historian Dr. Suzanne White Junod for Update Magazine, 'Sugar: A Cautionary Tale'.
3. April 1, 2022, nutritioninsight.com, ' Industry accuses FDA of favoring big pharma in NAC row '.
4. Nov. 14, 2004, New York Times, 'Despite Warnings, Drug Giant Took Long Path to Vioxx Recall'.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Nov. 14, 2004, New York Times, 'Despite Warnings, Drug Giant Took Long Path to Vioxx Recall'.
10. Ibid.
11. June 8, 2004, ucsusa.org (Union of Concerned Scientists), 'FDA’s Drug Safety System Fails to Protect Public'.
12. finance.senate.gov/imo/ media/doc/111804dgtest.pdf (accessed: June 3, 2024). 'Testimony of David J. Graham, MD, MPH, November 18, 2004'.
13. April 24, 2005, New York Times, 'Evidence in Vioxx Suits Shows Intervention by Merck Officials'.
14. Ibid.
15. broadinstitute.org/bios/edward-scolnick (accessed: June 3, 2024).
16. Ibid.
17. Nov. 14, 2004, New York Times, 'Despite Warnings, Drug Giant Took Long Path to Vioxx Recall'.
18. greenleafhealth.com/member/sandra-l-kweder-m-d/ (accessed: June 3, 2024).
19. Ibid.
20. Nov. 10, 2007, PBS, 'Timeline: The Rise and Fall of Vioxx'.
21. 2021 annual report, PEER, p. 14: "PEER was supported by 769 individual donors this calendar year. Foundation Partners: ... Seattle Foundation ... Park Foundation..."
22. ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/fda-survey-questions-and-results.pdf (accessed: June 3, 2024; '2006 UCS And Peer Survey Of U.S. Food And Drug Administration Scientists').
23. Copy-pasting this amendment into Google Books, shows this exact quote to exist in countless publications, including congressional ones, from at least 1961 on, and into the 1990s, when the FDA banned the safe Stevia compound.
24. April 1987, Vegetarian Times, 'Sweet Herb or Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana)'.
25. Sep. 1, 1999, Christian Science Monitor, 'Bitter dispute over an all-natural sweetener'.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. 2010, issue 1, Journal of Food Law & Policy, Jason Iuliano (Cambridge University), 'Killing Us Sweetly: How To Take Industry Out Of The FDA' (PDF).
29. Ibid.
30. April 16, 2008, New York Times, 'Merck Wrote Drug Studies for Doctors': "Dr. Joseph S. Ross of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said... “It almost calls into question all legitimate research that’s been conducted by the pharmaceutical industry with the academic physician,” ... because the ghostwriting practice appears to be widespread. ...
    In an editorial, JAMA said the analysis showed that Merck had apparently manipulated dozens of publications to promote Vioxx. “It is clear that at least some of the authors played little direct roles in the study or review, yet still allowed themselves to be named as authors,” the editorial said.".