OPINION:
The government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic opened the people’s eyes to the relentless power of pharmaceutical companies.
They saw politicians and regulators who accepted tens of millions in Big Pharma cash mislead Americans as to the effectiveness of the vaccines. They watched them ignore century-old science, arguing that experimental manufactured drugs were more effective than natural immunity and even working directly with social media companies to censor dissident voices, including those of scientists, doctors and Ivy League professors — all experts in their field — for daring to dissent.
Americans are still seeing the adverse effects of this unholy alliance today as PhRMA, the drug companies’ primary trade association, spends millions on television ads and congressional lobbying to increase drug costs through regulations on pharmacy benefit companies and other pro-consumer groups that keep prescription drugs affordable.
Enter Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, who recently put his foot down and said enough is enough. He introduced Senate Bill 3664, the Royalty Transparency Act, to stop the decision-makers who have a financial stake in the drug production and approval process from being able to continue to shield their royalty agreements and arrangements from the public’s view.
Anyone who reads the bill would assume that the things it seeks to ensure — among them, that federal employees report all the royalty payments they receive from drug manufacturers on their financial disclosures and that they follow the government-wide standards for financial transparency — are already law. Sadly, they are not.
Make no mistake about it: Political actors appear to be using this legal loophole to their advantage.
At a hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Mr. Paul asked whether he had received royalty payments from drug companies. He replied, “I doubt it,” but CBS News had already documented that Dr. Fauci had made money from companies producing drugs to fight AIDS.
In 2022, Mr. Paul spearheaded a letter with four other senators to the National Institutes of Health requesting information regarding industry royalty payments given to their employees. While he is still awaiting a response, Open the Books, an organization that aggressively uses the Freedom of Information Act to obtain information on government spending and programs, sued to get the data Mr. Paul requested.
After sifting through hundreds of redacted documents, they discovered that approximately 2,400 government scientists received $300 million in royalty payments from the industry they purport to vet research grant proposals. the NIH still insists it is not obligated to disclose any of this information.
If the automobile industry regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration received undisclosed payments from auto manufacturers to approve cars — or if defense contractors compensated the Department of Defense generals for approving new planes and missiles — the offending parties would never hear the end of it.
These scandals would make massive headlines, and the government would award Pulitzer Prizes to the journalists who exposed them. Just because the mandates pushed by the drug companies come from a well-funded interest group and fit a popular mainstream political narrative should not give Big Pharma a free pass to make equally egregious and salacious backroom deals with the political powers that be.
Mr. Paul’s bill will make it far more difficult for such political gamesmanship of health care policy to continue, and Congress should pass it without delay.
• Dr. Peter A. McCullough (@P_McCulloughMD) is a health care speaker and advocate who serves as president of the McCullough Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to health and geopolitical policy concerning medical freedom, civil rights, and injustices resulting from government and biopharmaceutical complex campaigns. He is also an attending physician and board-certified internal medicine and cardiovascular diseases at The Well Integrative Medicine in McKinney, Texas.
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