Jun 14, 2022 04:36 PM
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/3...alth-care/
INTRO: The recent stories about government scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) earning royalties from COVID-19 drug patents highlight the dangerous “iron triangle” among Big Pharma, Big Health Care, and government research and policymaking agencies. Iron triangles emerge from reinforcing financial and political ties among government offices, private organizations, and government aid recipients. Once in place, they can create enormous leverage over public policy, self-finance their own political power (lobbying, campaign contributions), and generate tremendous growth and cash flow — and they are nearly impossible to shut down. They are found throughout the public sector, from national defense to public welfare to health care.
The payment of royalties to NIH scientists involved in the development of drugs (and their patents) sold by private companies gives the appearance of potential conflicts of interest, especially when the leaders of those agencies push public policies on the use of those drugs. COVID certainly comes to mind because $50 billion in federal funds were made available for research and development and manufacturing and distribution of vaccines, netting drug companies $100 billion in revenue and $40 billion in profits. The mRNA technologies and patents, used to develop COVID vaccines, have led to a stream of royalty payments to government scientists for these and other drug breakthroughs.
There have been intense legal fights over patents and the allocation of royalties between private companies and NIH scientists. This is not new; it happened with the HIV drug AZT and other major, highly profitable breakthroughs. Both Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and former NIH Director Francis Collins were recipients of such royalties, a 2005 Associated Press investigation found. The doctors said they donated the payments to charity, but no one seems to know how much was paid, to whom, and where the money went.
Big Health Care — hospitals, doctors, health care delivery systems — profits substantially from administering vaccinations and other drugs, and depends on Fauci’s annual budgeted distribution of nearly $5 billion in external research money, so no one is likely to raise obvious questions about propriety, nor about the Fauci/NIH pressure to use the vaccines. Most recipient universities and other private medical research centers, of course, celebrate Fauci’s leadership. Any questions about NIH or Fauci’s decisions are termed “disinformation” and, as we saw with COVID, “not following the science.” But “following the money” continues to raise some important questions.
The secrecy of NIH is reflected in the next leg of the triangle... (MORE - details)
INTRO: The recent stories about government scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) earning royalties from COVID-19 drug patents highlight the dangerous “iron triangle” among Big Pharma, Big Health Care, and government research and policymaking agencies. Iron triangles emerge from reinforcing financial and political ties among government offices, private organizations, and government aid recipients. Once in place, they can create enormous leverage over public policy, self-finance their own political power (lobbying, campaign contributions), and generate tremendous growth and cash flow — and they are nearly impossible to shut down. They are found throughout the public sector, from national defense to public welfare to health care.
The payment of royalties to NIH scientists involved in the development of drugs (and their patents) sold by private companies gives the appearance of potential conflicts of interest, especially when the leaders of those agencies push public policies on the use of those drugs. COVID certainly comes to mind because $50 billion in federal funds were made available for research and development and manufacturing and distribution of vaccines, netting drug companies $100 billion in revenue and $40 billion in profits. The mRNA technologies and patents, used to develop COVID vaccines, have led to a stream of royalty payments to government scientists for these and other drug breakthroughs.
There have been intense legal fights over patents and the allocation of royalties between private companies and NIH scientists. This is not new; it happened with the HIV drug AZT and other major, highly profitable breakthroughs. Both Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and former NIH Director Francis Collins were recipients of such royalties, a 2005 Associated Press investigation found. The doctors said they donated the payments to charity, but no one seems to know how much was paid, to whom, and where the money went.
Big Health Care — hospitals, doctors, health care delivery systems — profits substantially from administering vaccinations and other drugs, and depends on Fauci’s annual budgeted distribution of nearly $5 billion in external research money, so no one is likely to raise obvious questions about propriety, nor about the Fauci/NIH pressure to use the vaccines. Most recipient universities and other private medical research centers, of course, celebrate Fauci’s leadership. Any questions about NIH or Fauci’s decisions are termed “disinformation” and, as we saw with COVID, “not following the science.” But “following the money” continues to raise some important questions.
The secrecy of NIH is reflected in the next leg of the triangle... (MORE - details)