How could anyone that lived through the Vioxx scandal ever trust anything their doctor, or any doctor, said, ever again? The heart attack-inducing pain medication was prescribed to over 25 million U.S. citizens, killing an estimated 55,000, and probably much, much more, over a period of five years. This should have been an industry-changing scandal, a profession-changing one. It was not. Hundreds of thousands of family members had to wake up to, and process, the shocking news that their parents, grandparents had simply died, suddenly, from a severe heart attack. Merck, the manufacturer of Vioxx who concealed the evidence of a doubling/tripling of the heart attack rate in studies before launching the drug, settled with some victims finally in 2011. Ray Gilmartin, CEO of Merck while Vioxx passed over the land like the Grim Reaper, now teaches “Management Practice” at Harvard Business School. He’s on the board of Microsoft. His post-Vioxx, post-Merck career has been more than a golden parachute; there has been no discernible decrease in the wind at his back. This pig-at-the-trough glided from a burning ship to another without a single scratch. He even had the audacity to pen (ghost-written?) essay, The Vioxx Recall Tested our Leadership, implicitly denying culpability and vainly expounding on what he learned from the ordeal, much the same way a child would after getting caught torturing the neighborhood cat. There were no consequences, and so he didn’t learn a thing, other than gaining an expanded perspective on what he could get away with.
His treatment and career perfectly mirrors that of politicians, generals, and media personalities who lie us into war. The architects of Iraq are still given medals, Hillary walks free although the facts of Libya are in full view, Obama’s war in Syria has destroyed millions of lives. The list is endless. These people do not live in the real world, of consequences, guilt, and growth. There isn’t a prison for the truly powerful.
Back to the original point: how can you trust your doctor, any doctor? They are still pushing products manufactured by the same corporation that created Vioxx. Why would you trust them? Gardasil and the MMR are Merck pharmaceutical products. But these products are unique in the fact that you are unable to sue Merck in the event that your child is permanently crippled by them. Gardasil has a 1-in-40 serious injury rate by Merck’s own admission, yet parents blindly inject their daughters. Why trust a member of an industry with an environment so toxic that it not only produces scandals such as Vioxx, but fails to punish anyone responsible when it does happen?
We are told that there is a measles “outbreak”, but what of the skyrocketing epidemic of chronic illness in children? It never makes the news. Where are all the 40- and 50-year olds with debilitating autoimmune disorders or autism? Something in our environment is devastating the immune systems of entire generations of children, something that has only been around since the early 90’s, and no one talks about it. The tail is wagging the dog, Pharma is controlling the narrative.
