Dear Editor,
From 1999 to 2018, the pharmaceutical and health product industry (fondly known as Big Pharma) spent an average of $233 million per year lobbying the U.S. Federal Government; $414 million on contributions to presidential and congressional electoral candidates, national party committees, and outside spending groups; and $877 million on contributions to state candidates and committees. In 2021, Big Pharma upped its game by lavishing over $356.5 million on American politicians. The industry wields a large influence-peddling apparatus of 1,270 registered lobbyists, 60% of whom are former government employees. What does that kind of money buy?
Big Pharma first created and then fueled the opioid epidemic. National epidemiological research shows that nearly 247,000 people died in the United States from overdoses involving prescription opioids between the years 1999 and 2019. Today, overdose deaths due to opioids – including prescription opioids, heroin, and synthetic opioids like fentanyl – have risen over six times since 1999.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the biggest pharmaceutical players worked hand in glove with the U.S. government to indiscriminately push an experimental mRNA gene therapy on the entire population. Young and healthy segments of the population, who stood to gain no benefit from their products, were harmed by them. VAERS is the primary taxpayer funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions. According to VAERS, Covid-19 injections have killed 28,312 Americans. The data includes 232,694 serious injuries.
Did you hear about the mass protests against Big Pharma? Me neither. Won’t happen. Instead, activists strung along by their puppeteers in power turn on the instant “outrage generator” and goad the unthinking masses to rail against imaginary bogeymen: conservative justices, Christians, competent men.
Targeting the National Rifle Association (which spent an embarrassing $4.8 million on lobbying last year) is back in vogue. There has been a lot of outrage from both sides of the political aisle about the NRA (it’s not called “uniparty” for nothing), but not a sound about the horrifying trail of murder that Big Pharma continues to leave in its wake. Impunity – that’s what $356.5 million buys.
Sincerely
Stu Lindberg
Cavendish, Vt.