The FDA and pharmaceutical companies have a revolving door of shared personnel that can no longer be overlooked. In fact, 9 of the last 10 FDA Commissioners, themselves, have gone on to work for pharmaceutical companies. Yes, NINE of the TEN people in the highest office at the FDA, spanning nearly 40 years in command, have transitioned into positions at drug companies, inherently carrying their insider knowledge with them. But, hey, there’s not a conflict of interest here, right? The dodgy things that have happened on their watch, like the approval of opioids that have killed over half a million Americans and the approval and mass marketing of drugs like Vioxx (that killed AT LEAST 60,000 Americans and gave heart attacks to many more) were just big oopsies. When testifying before the Senate in the case of Vioxx, the Deputy Director—Office of New Drugs at the FDA, Dr. Sandra Kweder, admitted the FDA was wrong for failing to make sure information about the increased risk of Vioxx causing a cardiovascular event was “in the forefront of the consciousness of the prescribing physician.” You might think, “Well those are just anomalies... look at all the other amazing drugs they’ve approved!” Then you’d be failing to realize that the FDA has also become a revolving door for “new” drugs that make drug companies hundreds of billions of dollars without being more beneficial. A meta-analysis published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics (and supported by the EJS Center for Ethics at Harvard), found that approximately 90 PERCENT of all new drugs approved by the FDA over the past 30 years are little to no more effective for patients than existing drugs. We have ushered in the age of the APPEARANCE of innovation from those who profit mightily from our collective sickness and ignorance. We’ve devolved to accepting that our FDA, the organization responsible for regulating drug companies, is now massively funded by those same drug companies. Today, drug companies provide the FDA with BILLIONS of dollars annually (making up nearly half of their overall budget and 75% of their scientific review budget) all under the guise that it’s for our own good.