Pharmaceutical companies have engaged in so many questionable activities over the years that those of us who have been paying attention often wonder why so many doctors continue to willingly peddle their products. From recalled drugs that they knew were dangerous all along to their untested COVID-19 vaccines that destroyed numerous people’s health, it all feels very much like an open secret that they don’t have people’s best interests at heart.

However, those who get their news from the mainstream media are blissfully unaware of all this, and that includes many medical professionals as well. As the pandemic demonstrated, the mainstream media has to keep its advertisers happy, and that includes pharmaceutical companies, and they’re also influenced by the government. As a result, many doctors are surprisingly naïve to what has been going on with Big Pharma and its numerous deceptions and illegal actions.

Most doctors enter the field out of a genuine desire to help people. Although there have been cases of doctors knowingly risking their patients’ health in pursuit of profits, many of them want to keep people healthy and truly believe that pharmaceuticals are the answer – often based on what they are taught in medical school. And while there is no doubt that some drugs and other interventions save lives every day, failing to research these solutions and stay on top of independent news reports about pharmaceutical companies means some doctors are unwittingly doing more harm than good.

Study shows 85% of pharmaceutical companies engaged in illegal activities

For example, not many doctors are aware of a peer-reviewed article published by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2020 looking at illegal activities by pharmaceutical companies from 2003 to 2016.

That study revealed that 85 percent of the companies studied had been hit with financial penalties for their illegal activities, adding up to a total combined value of $33 billion. The illegal activities that these companies engaged in ranged from misleading marketing and failing to disclose negative information about their products such as serious side effects, to manufacturing and distributing adulterated drugs. They also found cases of companies providing kickbacks to medical professionals, pricing violations and bribing foreign officials.

There were a lot of familiar names on the list, with GlaxoSmithKline paying overall fines of nearly $10 billion, Pfizer on the hook for $2.9 billion and Johnson & Johnson paying $2.6 billion in penalties. Eli Lilly, Merck, AstraZeneca, Novartis and Sanofi Aventis were also among the names identified in the study as being fined for illegal activities.

In many of these situations, court cases drag out for years, with pharmaceutical companies appealing to higher courts when they are hit with unfavorable findings. This can make it very difficult for patients and other victims to hold them accountable. It's also important to note that although you may hear about some of these convictions if you are willing to seek out the information yourself, there are also numerous settlements that never come to light, with companies paying money to their victims without admitting any guilt.

Covering up unfavorable studies and ghostwriting journal articles

One of the more blatant examples of pharmaceutical company wrongdoing was seen with Merck's anti-arthritis drug Vioxx, which was used by as many as 80 million people around the world at its peak popularity. Although it was marketed as being a safer alternative to other anti-inflammatory drugs, it was later revealed – after patients suffered from heart attacks – that a study funded by Merck found a sevenfold increase in heart attacks, but they went on to gain approval by the FDA anyway. Another study funded by the company found a fivefold increase in heart attacks, but the company failed to include some of them in the data they submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine, leaning to a “misleading conclusion” about the risk of the drug.

There have also been cases involving journals that were sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and made to look like independent scientific journals containing articles that were ghostwritten by Merck employees and attributed to doctors.

The evidence is out there, and if we assume that what we’re aware of represents only a fraction of their wrongdoings and that they have likely done even more but haven’t been caught, it’s horrifying to think of the damage that could be done. Many doctors who pushed COVID-19 vaccines said that they believed they were safe because they thought that pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t do anything to hurt people, but apparently, they just weren’t paying enough attention.

Sources for this article include:

ChildrensHealthDefense.org

NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov