Don’t You Believe The Science®?
My year-end sarcastic post.
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Person: Don’t you believe The Science®?
Me: A resounding Yes!!! I found out that that most scientists—about 70%—can’t replicate the studies of their peers (BBC 1), however I’m sure only the other 30% are the only ones serving us with their safe and effective products. Besides, replication is overrated as being a key part of the scientific method. Questioning The Science® means I don’t have enough faith. I don’t want to be one of those people.
Since 2000, the Pharma Industry has $86,041,395,388 in criminal and civil penalties, which includes Pfizer’s $10,193,896,333 and J&J’s $14,760,947,763 (Violation Tracker 2). Pfizer and J&J also have the honor of being among getting the largest fines for criminal and civil offenses in the history of the Justice Department (Justice.gov 3). But who cares? It’s not like they defrauded me personally, plus it might be a conspiracy. The Justice Department should remove their press releases to be safe. Corporations are people (PBS, HuffPost, The Atlantic 4), so it hurts their feelings.
Just like I don’t consider the content of any one individual’s character, and simply discern individuals by their identity group (simple and easy), all vaccines should not be assessed individually either. That’s why mandates are a good idea for every single individual, no matter her or his own medical situation, intuition, discernment, and conscience. People should berate their leper, I mean un-vaxxed, family members more.
Did you know that scientists are a special group who are all good and every scientist is highly concerned about ethics? That’s why I totally ignored the headlines and articles over the years, such as “Rich-world scientists conduct questionable experiments in poor countries” (Economist), “Ethics left behind as drug trials soar in developing countries” (Guardian), “The US national bioethics committee found in a survey that a quarter of clinical trials in developing countries are not ethically assessed”(Guardian) [Various sources 5 ]. Besides, it’s not like I would be part of a drug trial.
Earlier this month (December 2021), when the Intercept reported that the trade group for Pfizer and Moderna made large dark-money donations to Republicans and Democrats during the 2020 election (The Intercept 6 ) , I just repeated a mantra that dark-money and conflicts of interests are conspiracies and went on with my life.
It’s also totally fine that in 2020 over 2,400 of our state lawmakers used Pharma cash to fund their campaigns (StatNews 7) and Pharma is among the top 10 stocks held by members of congress (Center for Responsive Politics 8). Being both shareholders and grateful to big Pharma for helping fund their campaigns makes certain that our lawmakers put people before profits. The shareholder class is a myth. Identity is more important. These interests identify as good; then’t it’s good. They identify as being the Greater Good, so I worship them even more. I dumped my old religion for the Science®.
To add another layer of protection from these conspiracies and myths, ignore the Reuter’s tweet “Tens of millions of migrants may be denied COVID-19 vaccines from a global program because some major manufacturers are worried about legal risks from harmful side effects.” (Reuters 9 ). Also dismiss that Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J have total immunity from liability if something goes wrong with their vaccines in the United States (CNBC 10) and that governments around the world signed secret vaccine deals giving the drug makers liability shields, among other benefits (NY Times 11). After all, we are all one big blob. Every individual of any age experiences same physiological constitutions, so there are no so-called “side effects”, especially if you and yours didn’t get any major so-called side effects. Plus, migrants are different from us. They’d probably sue for a sore arm, right?
Even though one of the most prestigious medical journals, The British Medical Journal, tried to start a global campaign in late 2019 to separate medicine from big Pharma, because “endemic financial entanglement with industry is distorting the production and use of healthcare evidence, causing harm to individuals and waste for health systems,” and they said that doctors are being unduly influenced by Pharma industry sponsored education and industry funded major drugs trials—trials that cannot be trusted, they said (Sydney Morning Herald 12), I’m certain that none of this so-called harm will happen to me and mine.
Though profit is too often the focus, instead of health or science, in our trillion dollar health care industry (NPR 13), I’m sure that each physician I personally encounter and each prescription she or he writes are not affected by being unduly influenced from these great and very ethical multinational corporations, who are just people.
Even though it can take many years, sometimes decades, before a drug is recalled or recommended against in certain situations, e.g., after twenty-five years of research now a consensus of 91 scientists recommended that pregnant women should forego Tylenol (Paracetamol/Acetaminophen) due to fetal development risks (Nature 14), the Science® is always settled. I’m sure those born since Acetaminophen started being ingested are all A-okay.
The New England Journal of Medicine’s editor-in-chief Dr. Jeffrey Drazen told NPR that Merck “hoodwinked” their medical journal (NPR 15) about Vioxx. Over the five years Vioxx/Rofecoxib was on the market, it was ingested by 20 million Americans, resulting in about 28,000 heart attacks (NBC16). But so what? It didn’t happen to me. Plus, it was probably a conspiracy that gave those people heart attacks.
Yes, the British Medical Journal’s global campaign against Pharma influence in medicine clearly warns about this type of situation, however I’m certain that big Pharma has straightened up by now. I’ll just ignore that between August of 2020 (Web archive Violation Tracker 17) and now there’s been an additional $45,860,355,234 in civil and criminal penalties against big Pharma and Merck is now second from the top (Violation Tracker18 as of today).
The Science® is always settled, even though in 2017 alone, manufacturers recalled (FDA about recalls19) 4,402 drug and device products. Of those recalls, the FDA classified 139 as Class I. Class I recalled products have the potential to cause serious harm or death (DrugWatch 20). All watchdog groups must be ignored, just to be extra safe and effective.
And even though it took 108 days for the FDA to approve Pfizer for emergency use, the FDA first wanted 55 years to release the full data (Reuters 21), and now wants 75 years ( FDA’s brief 22), there’s nothing to be concerned about. Also ignore that pharma companies underwrite 75% of the FDA’s budget for scientific reviews and that the FDA is increasingly fast-tracking expensive drugs with significant side effects and unproven health benefits (Propublica 23). Just because the FDA has moved from an entirely taxpayer-funded entity to one increasingly funded by drug and device manufacturers they are still the same old FDA.
Rich-world scientists conduct questionable experiments in poor countries.
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/02/02/recent-events-highlight-an-unpleasant-scientific-practice-ethics-dumping
Ethics left behind as drug trials soar in developing countries.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2011/jul/04/ethics-left-behing-drug-trials-developing
New England Journal of Medicine that in November 2007, about one-third of clinical trials (157 of 509) were being carried out entirely outside the United States, many of them in developing countries.
https://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/18/outsourced.trials/index.html
The US national bioethics committee found in a survey that a quarter of clinical trials in developing countries are not ethically assessed.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/sep/24/ethical-foreign-drug-trials
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