first time, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) announced it had negotiated lower prices for 10 drugs for those on Medicare Part D. The Biden-Harris administra- tion cited this as evidence it was in the arena fighting for the average everyday American.
But to put the CMS
negotiations in perspective, the FDA has approved over 17,000 drugs for use in the United States. Activists, moreover,
warn the likely result of the negotiated prices will be to limit those drugs’ avail- ability, as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and in- surance companies switch
to other, pricier drugs to earn more profit. Beyond pricing, critics
point to growing symp- toms the medical industry in America needs major reforms. “Patients in America are getting much sicker every year,” author and entrepre- neur Calley Mean’s sister, Casey, told political com- mentator Tucker Carlson. “We’re getting depressed, infertile. And life expec- tancy is going down — in a country that’s spending almost two times more than any other country in the world.” Casey was known as a brilliant Stanford medical school graduate and sur-
geon who put down her scalpel and left the practice of medicine when she could no longer tolerate how it works. Since then, she’s dedicated herself to helping people enhance their own health and wellness. “There’s a huge problem
in how we’re practicing medicine right now,” said Casey Means. “We’re ignor- ing the root causes of why Americans are sick, and we’re profiting off of pa- tients getting sick and then doing things to them. “That’s the way the busi-
ness model of healthcare works,” she adds. “The way that healthcare, which is
the largest and fastest-grow- ing industry in the United States, makes money is you have more and more patients in the system hav- ing more things done for them over longer periods of time.” Somehow politicians,
corporate execs, and the medical-industrial com- plex had created a system that thrived best when the health of America’s people was awful.
MAHA Gathers Momentum
the maga-make america healthy again alliance has helped expose the alarming short- comings of the U.S. medical system, both in terms of health metrics and cost. Among MA- HA’s criticisms of how U.S. healthcare works: Regulators’ Revolving Door — They charge
that top FDA and NIH executives routinely pass through a revolving door that leads from government service into high six- and seven-fig- ure roles at major pharmaceutical companies. FDA executives catching heat for pro-Big Pharma drug approvals can always find a golden parachute and land in the welcoming, open arms of the pharmaceutical giants. Critics would like to see that revolving door
somehow closed, to reduce the appearance of a conflict of interest when major decisions are made, such as whether a given drug is safe and effective enough to merit regulatory approval. Big Pharma’s “User Fees” — Federal law
allows the FDA to collect “fees” from medical device manufacturers and Big Pharma. That patronage now exceeds $3 billion annually, and accounts for over 75% of the budget of the
62 NEWSMAX | DECEMBER 2024
FDA’s drug division. Big Pharma’s defenders say the fees are
essential for drug development, because they help offset the cost of reviewing drug approval applications, ensuring that proposed new drug treatments are safe and effective before they are administered to the public. Without those fees, they maintain, the developmental pipeline of new drugs patients need could run dry. Shielded From Liability — Members of Con-
gress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in 1986 to protect vaccine manufac- turers from multimillion-dollar lawsuits that might halt vaccine development. Alternative vaccine injury compensation
funds have been established. Critics say the Vaccine Injury Act has contributed to the spiral- ing number of required vaccines, which jumped from six — smallpox, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and DTP — in the late 1960s, to up to 27 shots now for a 2-year-old child, with up to six of those injections coming in a single doctor visit. Dubious Drug Approvals — In 2021, the
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