Consider this scenario. A councilman in a modest-sized New England town that is part of a regional school district receives campaign contributions from a teachers union. Would it be possible for this public official to consistently vote for school funding overrides of Proposition 2½?
How about a senator who receives more than half of his political campaign contributions from the NRA (National Rifle Association). What would this lawmaker’s voting pattern be on gun control measures if elected or retained in office?
Now consider these harsh realities.
In 2021, Pfizer’s political action committee contributed to 228 lawmakers in Congress. Amgen’s PAC gave to 218. Those two companies alone provided roughly half of the funds needed for political campaigns to win or retain seats. Certainly, there are other pharmaceutical and biomedical companies in the fray with money to influence. Add to this the leverage of the lobbies and we have what is known as the medical-industrial complex. This refers to what President Eisenhower especially warned against at the end of his term in 1961: the “military-industrial complex.” It was a network of economic interests merged with influential political leaders who supported the profit motives of corporations and individuals at the expense of the general public.
In March of this year, Dr. John Abramson, MD, Harvard Medical School faculty member for 16 years, researcher, writer, and formerly family physician for 22 years, delivered remarks at Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan. He highlighted a startling scenario in which big pharmaceutical and biomedical companies increasingly control the outcome of “medical research,” funding research directly at colleges and universities and through their own research, with little peer review.
The results are predictable. With the goal of profit rather than public health achievement, the dollars are used to influence policy makers to make laws and regulations that support the overproduction of prescription drugs and to dominate medical treatment with drug interventions. drugs, rather than disease prevention and mitigation.
In many developed countries health is increasing by many measures in the general population and mainly due to holistic and preventive health management policies. This is in contrast to US healthcare systems that are based on an extreme reliance on drugs and medical devices. Our system is dysfunctional and what has happened is that medical knowledge is increasingly being defined by corporate dollars flowing directly into research, funding institutions running research campaigns and funding politicians protecting business of drugs and corporate medical devices.
One of the benefits for corporations that have exponentially increased control over research, public policy, and ultimately knowledge, is the decline in public subsidies. With fewer dollars from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, for example, there is a sharp shift from more scientific researchers asking corporations—or being directly solicited—for access to needed research money.
This is not a new dynamic, as it has been occurring for decades, but the evidence suggests that the paradigm shift is accelerating.
As highlighted by Dr. Abramson, in 1981 the president of Harvard University announced that the university was increasing its reliance on industry-based research and warned of dire consequences. He stated “…an uneasy feeling that programs to exploit technological development may confuse the university’s central commitment to the pursuit of knowledge.”
One can only assume that corporations are not confused and that the exploitation of technological development is about making a profit. They are pursuing a clear path to more profits with their dual control over research investment alongside financially supported legislators and policy makers, who in turn provide the bailout to address negative public health outcomes to the detriment of society. .
Dr. Abramson concluded his remarks with three fairly simple suggestions: 1) evidence-based medical research should be independently verified through peer review processes that are not connected to funding sources; 2) doctors and practitioners should be the arbiters of which drugs and devices are effective, not company officials; and 3) the prices of brand name drugs should be regulated.
These goals must be pursued through bipartisan collaboration. The continuation of the current direction of medical public policy and how it is financed will make our health care prohibitively expensive and unaffordable for millions of people as we get sicker.
Joe D’Amore writes from Groveland. Contact him at damorecos@gmail.com.
