12 Ways The New Congress Should Hold Big Pharma Accountable For Covid Evils

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed a crisis of confidence in our so-called elites and technocrats, who are supposed to serve the public but instead appear to have been serving themselves. So what do we do to restore sanity and medical freedom and make sure a public health disaster never happens again? Some suggest “amnesty” for those who went to extremes during the pandemic. Absolutely not. What we need is to recognize what contributed to the insane pandemic response and implement solutions to make sure nothing like it ever happens again.

Now that the GOP has a majority in the House and some members want to hold Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), and others accountable, here are 12 steps Congress can take to curb future pharma corruption and malfeasance.

None of these should be considered partisan since both parties should share the objective of avoiding another pandemic disaster. However, the pharmaceutical and health industry makes substantial contributions to elected officials on both sides of the aisle, with more than $361 million spent on lobbying in 2021 and an all-time high of $92 million in political contributions in 2020 (62 percent to Democrats and 38 percent to Republicans), so implementing reforms will be a challenge no matter who controls the House or the Senate.

Early in 2022, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., published a 12-point plan to rescue America. Curiously, not a single point of his plan addressed the pandemic even though it was the worst health catastrophe in a century that also triggered authoritarian medical mandates and censorship never before seen in this country.

What is the common denominator between the pharmaceutical companies, the public health bureaucracy, medical associations, the corporate media, and Big Tech companies when it comes to censorship and medical misinformation? Money, of course.

According to Statista, the pharmaceutical and medical industry spent $5.6 billion on U.S. television advertising in 2021, second only behind the life and entertainment industry at $10.1 billion. For reference, total U.S. TV ad spending is expected to exceed $68 billion in 2022. According to eMarketer, pharmaceutical and health care companies combined spent an estimated $9.5 billion on digital media in 2020, with 56 percent going toward search advertising, dominated by Google and Facebook, which have aggressively censored medical information that deviated from the official public health narrative. This accounted for about 7.1 percent of all U.S. digital ad spending.

The pharma industry pays, in the form of user fees, for 75 percent of the FDA’s drug review budget, according to Forbes, and 45 percent of its overall budget. One investigation showed that 40 of 107 physician advisers on the FDA committees examined “received more than $10,000 in post hoc earnings or research support from the makers of drugs that the panels voted to approve, or from competing firms.”

According to an analysis by the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has numerous conflicts of interest,

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