Humanity has been sorely tested these past two years with the Covid pandemic. As the lethal virus spread quickly from China to the West and deaths started to mount, the medical and scientific communities, working with governments around the world scrambled to sort out what could be done to limit the virus's damage. Uncertainty abounded – the source of the virus was unclear, treatments not yet proven, different nations took different precautions, the scientific community strove for unity but without enough knowledge of the virus yet to achieve it, many missteps and corrections were made along the way as history with the virus accrued – often adding to a sense of chaos and uncertainty. In the US and other countries, narratives often devolved along political lines, with significant and growing mistrust between factions, as governments strove to implement safety plans. There were hopeful moments, as well, with people recognizing and honoring front line workers who faced increased risks, and with governments, at least in the beginning, seeming to recognize that we needed a just and concerted worldwide effort to survive the pandemic and that people deserved the safety net that only communal action and shared resources can bring.
A Second Virus
This emergency, as most disasters and emergencies, brought out tremendous communal efforts to reach out and care for each other, but it also brought on a host of forces that have exploited the situation to accrue obscene profits, expand governmental and media influence, consolidate corporate control, dominate the public narrative and reduce participatory and democratic principles and practices. This second “virus” is more enduring and more lethal than the Covid pandemic itself methinks and yet is largely off the radar of public discussion.
While we desperately seek medical and pharmaceutical discoveries that might bring us safely out of the pandemic, it is hard to completely trust the pharmaceutical industry and the enormous profits such discoveries, whatever their hazards, might bring. Just consider the opioid epidemic and the willful harm that the drug companies and distributors inflicted on millions in order to reap those same profits.
And not just opioids. Widely used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (Vioxx, Celebrex, Bextra) used for pain relief for arthritis had sales of 4.5 billion in 2003 alone, even as studies emerged that suggested serious, lethal effects in many patients. A 1999 clinical trial conducted by Pfizer found that elderly patients taking Celebrex were more likely to suffer heart problems than patients taking a placebo. Pfizer has claimed the study was flawed. Advertising to consumers and physicians helped fuel the growth of these pain medications. In 2002, Merck spent $171 million to promote Vioxx to physicians, while Pfizer spent $133 million on Celebrex and another $120 million on Bextra.
Or Darvon and Darvocet which came onto the market as painkillers in the 50s and were widely used. In the late 70s Public Citizen and other groups were petitioning the FDA to ban the drug because of dangerous side effects including fatal heart rhythm abnormalities. England and countries and Europe banned the drug but the FDA didn’t take it off the market until many years later, in 2009.
Follow the Money!
Collusion between corporations and government has reached epic proportions. In 2021, the Pharmaceuticals/Health Products Industry spent $266,846,347 on lobbying efforts and fielded 1,616 lobbyists in the halls of Congress, nearly 60% of them former government employees. Over the past two decades nearly five billion dollars has been poured into lobbying efforts with government alone, let alone the tens of billions spent on advertising and marketing to doctors and hospitals.
It doesn’t take much to see that public policy is largely made by the big corporate players. Who funds the politicians, who is at the meetings in the White House, in Senate and Congressional offices, at Davos, at the WHO? Whose leaders and spokespeople are appointed to key positions in regulatory agencies, including the FDA? Who increasingly fund academic research on campuses throughout America and the world?
Is it any wonder that there is some level of mistrust in government and “science” itself when there is so much corporate influence and control at every level?
