Alia Bland

This morning, Stuff published an opinion piece titled “Medsafe’s accountability to us is a reason we trust it over the FDA.”

As I read through, I wondered:

Which morsel of already-known or yet-to-come-out information relating to these regulatory agencies (FDA & Medsafe) is this damage-control piece attempting to address?

Could it be the mountains of pages from the latest Pfizer document dump? Or the worrying direction the world is heading concerning increasing evidence of harm from the Covid-19 jabs?

Might it be the High Court’s legal challenge last week (the Kids Case) that focused heavily on Medsafe’s Chris James and the approval process for the Covid-19 jab for 5-11-year-olds?

Regardless, it would seem that those in authority wish to differentiate Medsafe from the FDA and give our regulatory body a bit of spit and polish while they’re at it.

The author, Ben Gray, is an Associate Professor of Primary Health Care and General Practice at the University of Otago, Wellington – a suitably qualified candidate for ‘trustworthy expert’ status in the public eye. Tick.

Gray makes some interesting points that the public should know about the pharmaceutical industry and the associated regulatory agencies tasked with ensuring the safety and efficacy of new drugs and products. He names the FDA, but one could easily include the CDC, NAIAD, NIH, HHS, ACIP, VRBPAC, and others.

So, what should the public know?

CONFLICTS & CORRUPTION

• Money corrupts – big time.

The pharmaceutical industry has a long history of corrupt behaviour. Fines run into the billions, with our favourite company, Pfizer, clocking up its fair share of these.

The FDA (and others) receive funding from the industry and products they regulate, which is a clear conflict of interest.

Even here in NZ, many of our “experts” and organisations, such as the Immunisation Advisory Centre (IMAC), receive funding from pharmaceutical industries to conduct research. This conflict must be factored in when analysing their advice.

• There is a revolving door between Pharma and the regulatory agencies. Influential senior staff jump from one industry to another, making conflicts of interest rife.
• It is NORMAL for data to be manipulated and hidden, especially if the results are less than favourable.

“At best, there is a risk of interpreting evidence of safety and efficacy optimistically because of these costs. At worst, information relating to safety and efficacy is hidden to enable marketing.”

In the past, it has taken the work of independent researchers to expose proof of correlative harm.

“New Zealand suffered an epidemic of asthma deaths from the use of the Berotec inhaler in the 1970s and 80s. Safety of this drug had not been adequately established by the drug company and this only came to light as a result of independent researchers proving a correlation.”

While this may have been the case previously in NZ, any researcher attempting to raise the alarm in 2022 regarding the safety of Covid-19 vaccines swiftly finds themselves publicly rinsed and out of a job.

We rely on the media to be our watchdogs when it comes to investigating scientific processes, results, conflicts, and emerging trends. However, the media have also been captured here in NZ. The watchdogs have been distracted by the string of sausages tossed to them by way of Government grants and advertising (read: propaganda) contracts.

MEDSAFE

Gray states, “Drugs should only be approved if we know they work and are safe.” This statement referenced the approval of hydroxychloroquine in the US but could equally apply to the provisional consent of Covid-19 vaccines here in NZ.

Back in February 2021, Medsafe compiled a list of 58 conditions for Pfizer regarding the safety and efficacy of its vaccine. These conditions were public, but the responses were not. They were hidden away and labelled “commercially sensitive”.

The takeaway: Pfizer’s bottom line trumps transparency and accurate societal understanding of the science.

The professor claims that “Medsafe is inevitably constrained in what it can do by the size of our population and there is a possibility that there are some delays in its processes for approving medicines, but at least it is accountable to us and trustworthy.”

He assures us that Medsafe is trustworthy but provides no evidence for such a guarantee. Yes, they SHOULD be trustworthy and accountable, but how is this measured realistically? What checks and balances are in place to protect Medsafe officials and processes from Government overreach, narrative protection, and agendas?

At this point in time we should be seeing MORE transparency, not less.

WHO BEARS THE COST

Gray states, “The costs of approving drugs that don’t work or have nasty side effects are borne by the patients and the limited drug budget, and flow directly into the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry.”

Sadly, we couldn’t agree more.

Our country harbours a dirty little secret in the form of a rapidly expanding community of vaccine-injured Kiwis. Responsibility for the nasty side-effects of the Covid-19 vaccines is carried almost entirely by those directly impacted and their families. Very little support is available through the system, with many patients receiving inaccurate, biased diagnoses and being left to research and treat their conditions themselves.

If Medsafe truly cared for the well-being of New Zealanders, they’d have hit the pause button and reached for the magnifying glass months ago.

Medsafe’s “accountability to us” is what Professor Gray may trust over the FDA, but the rest of us will need more than blind faith to jump on that wagon.

REFERENCE: Stuff article