CDC Director Resigns, But CDC Conflicts of Interest Are Par For The Course
Media
outlets are announcing the abrupt resignation of Brenda Fitzgerald, the
physician appointed in July, 2017 to head the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC). The resignation follows on
the heels of
reporting by Politico,
which uncovered conflicts of interest pertaining to dubious investment
decisions made by Fitzgerald after she became the nation’s top public
health official—including the purchase of thousands of dollars of
tobacco, pharmaceutical and health care stocks. Individuals interviewed
by Politicodescribe the trading decisions as “sloppy” and “ridiculous” at best and “legally problematic” at worst.
Most headlines are focusing exclusively
on the CDC director’s investments in tobacco companies, which strike
observers as hypocritical in light of Fitzgerald’s prioritization of tobacco prevention initiatives while
serving as public health commissioner for the state of Georgia prior to
joining CDC. However, Fitzgerald’s sizeable investments in the
pharmaceutical and chemical giants Merck and Bayer, among others, should
raise just as many red flags.
The CDC has its own lengthy history of corruption and deceit and has routinely turned a blind eye to conflicts of interest while it works to “protect the private good.”
Both Merck and Bayer have a pattern of
wreaking havoc on human health while striving to bury the evidence.
Merck, for example, manufactures the top-selling but devastating
Gardasil vaccine and used statistical gimmicks and other deceptive tactics to conceal Gardasil’s risks. Whistleblowers also have accused Merck of falsifying its mumps vaccine data. Bayer, too, has a track record of “scandal and marketing fraud,” having once paid out millions to the U.S. government in a medical fraud settlement after
admitting to overcharging for Bayer’s antibiotic Cipro. Bayer also
settled tens of millions after having persisted in selling contaminated blood products to hemophiliacs. At present, Bayer is poised to close a “mega-deal” to merge with Monsanto, which manufactures the glyphosate-containing herbicide RoundUp—both glyphosate and RoundUp’s other ingredients have been shown to be highly toxic.
The CDC has its own lengthy history of corruption and deceit and has routinely turned a blind eye to conflicts of interest while it works to “protect the private good.” Although the agency owns 56 patents applicable to vaccines, it has no problem shredding vaccine safety data it
doesn’t like, while continuing to serve as the nation’s powerful (and
ostensibly “independent”) arbiter of vaccine policy. Julie Gerberding,
the doctor who led the CDC from 2002 to 2009 (the time period when the
Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil without proper safety
testing), left CDC to
become president of Merck Vaccines and subsequently became Merck’s
executive vice president for global strategic communications. Gerberding
has benefited handsomely from her shares of Merck stock.
Thus, Brenda Fitzgerald’s personal
financial stake in companies such as Merck and Bayer only illustrates,
in microcosm, the CDC’s longstanding willingness to cozy up to Big
Pharma and Big Health Care in defiance of ethics rules. What the United
States urgently needs—and taxpayers firmly deserve—is ethical leadership
across the board at CDC, provided by individuals who are free from
financial conflicts both before and after taking office. The
far-reaching health decisions made by CDC officials need to be driven by
solid and truly independent science, not by officials’ pocketbooks.
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