Big Pharma is Shelling Out Billions to Control Science

Updated

By Tracy Beanz & Michelle Edwards

Over the course of nine years, from 2013 to 2022, physicians in the United States received $12.1 billion from Big Pharma. Payments varied between specialties and between physicians within the same specialty. Orthopedic surgeons were paid the most at $1.36 billion, followed by neurologists and psychiatrists at $1.32 billion and cardiologists at $1.29 billion. But the influence peddling doesn’t stop there. The doctors entrusted to care for Americans are not the only aspect of healthcare heavily influenced by the industry doing its darndest to keep us unwell and maintain repeat customers. No indeed. Big Pharma also pays peer reviewers—those tasked to perform the final action in what the industry claims makes a paper trustworthy—big bucks to examine studies. Between 2020 and 2022, the pharmaceutical industry paid reviewers $1.06 billion.

We are repeatedly told that peer reviewers are essential. How often during COVID-19 did we witness reports that offered a way out of the pandemic madness—but yet also excluded the deadly jabs and offered a glimpse of their harm—being cast aside, frequently admonished by corrupt fact-checkers quick to declare, “That paper is not peer-reviewed.”

Undoubtedly, today’s healthcare system is controlled by the best skewed science money can buy. An October 10, 2024, research letter in JAMA titled “Payments by Drug and Medical Device Manufacturers to US Peer Reviewers of Major Medical Journals” focused on peer reviewers for The BMJ, JAMA, The Lancet, and The New England Journal of Medicine. The study authors chose these journals “for their high impact factor and reputation as leading publications of original general medical research.” The study revealed the following troubling results:

“Between 2020 and 2022, 1155 peer reviewers (58.9%) received at least one industry payment. More than half (54.0%) of reviewers accepted general payments, while 31.8% received research payments.

Reviewers received $1.06 billion in industry payments between 2020 and 2022, including $1.00 billion (94.0%) to individuals or their institutions and $64.18 million (6.0%) in general payments. Consulting fees and speaking compensation unrelated to continuing medical education programs accounted for $34.31 million and $11.80 million, respectively. Over the three years, the median general payment was $7,614 (IQR, $495-$43,069), and the median research payment was $153,173 (IQR, $29,307-$835,637) among reviewers receiving such payments.

Male reviewers had significantly higher median total payments ($38,959 vs $19,586) and general payments ($8,663 vs $4,183) than female reviewers. Statistically significant differences in payments existed between specialties.”

The authors of the study rightly conclude that more research and, most importantly, transparency regarding industry payments in the peer-review process are urgently needed. They are right about that, but this call for transparency should not be limited to peer review—it should be a fundamental principle throughout healthcare. As noted above, for at least a decade, physicians have been persuaded with payments for consulting services, non-consulting services, food and beverages, travel and lodging, entertainment, education, gifts, grants, charitable contributions, and honoraria made to physicians.

This unhinged setup breeds corruption, and no doubt contributes to the unprecedented levels of disease and illness that plague our nation. The scope of the deceit brings to mind the scheme surrounding Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emergency telephone conference in early 2020, which was no doubt planned to shape the ‘origins of COVID’ narrative. The level of immorality attained by those entrusted to protect our health should serve as a stark reminder of the perils of a lack of transparency. How much were Fauci and his cohorts paid to propagandize the tyranny that resulted from the fear they created around a virus no more harmful than the flu in order to inject the masses with an experimental gene therapy?

The curtain is pulled back, and the game is straightforward. Big Pharma is shelling out billions to destroy our health. With the FDA’s hand in its pocket, Big Pharma paid over $1 billion over the course of two years—during the height of the COVID-19 mRNA gene-damaging jab rollout—to influence medical publications. As intended, a peer reviewer is a subject matter expert who evaluates the quality, validity, and significance of a scholarly or academic work before it is published or accepted, ensuring that the work meets the necessary standards of the field. The peer review process is supposed to maintain the quality and integrity of the work before them. Instead, the system has been degraded as another arm of corruption—with ghostwritten articles by compromised scientists promoting a false narrative that is on a fast track to steal our freedom. We cannot continue to allow federal funds to support such a destructive system.

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Tracy Beanz & Michelle Edwards

Tracy Beanz is an investigative journalist with a focus on corruption. She is known for her unbiased, in-depth coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. She hosts the Dark to Light podcast, found on all major video and podcasting platforms. She is a bi-weekly guest on the Joe Pags Radio Show, has been on Steve Bannon’s WarRoom and is a frequent guest on Emerald Robinson’s show. Tracy is Editor-in-chief at UncoverDC.com.