U.S. citizens: Demand Congress investigate soaring excess death rates
(LifeSiteNews) — A former food and pharmaceutical consultant explained to Tucker Carlson on Friday that drug ads primarily aim not to gain new customers but to “buy off” the media.
Calley Means, co-founder of TrueMed, an organization promoting prevention-focused healthcare, told Carlson it is an “open secret” that the “news ad spending from pharma is a public relations lobbying tactic” to “buy off the news.”
The result is that major media organizations not only fail to scrutinize or investigate Big Pharma, but they paint those who reject any standard pharmaceuticals, including vaccines, as backwards and irrational.
Means noticed, for example, that one was framed as a “terrible, anti-science Luddite for asking why the shots that we require our kids to get fundamentally change the immune system of that child for life.”
Big Pharma’s grip on the media is compounded by the enormous influence it exercises on even regulatory health agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and those that set the standard for medical practice, like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
Not only are pharmaceutical companies the largest funders of news companies, providing for 50 percent of their budget, Means told Dr. Mark Hyman in a recent podcast, but they are the biggest funders of “government,” “think tanks,” and “academic research.”
The former pharma consultant cited the diabetes drug Ozempic, which has racked up popularity for its off-label use for weight loss, as the “Rosetta Stone” to understanding “pharma industry corruption.”
Means pointed out that the drug exploits the massive health crisis of obesity and diabetes in the U.S., where he said now 50 percent of teens and 80 percent of adults are overweight. This is just “one branch of the tree of underlying metabolic dysfunction that’s ravaging our country,” Calley told Carlson, adding that over half of Americans now have prediabetes, including 33 percent of young people.
“If a fish tank is dirty, you clean the tank. You don’t drug the fish,” said Means, emphasizing that health agencies don’t talk about the root cause of obesity or diabetes but prefer to promote a weekly injection marketed for lifetime use “that costs $20,000 per patient.”
That U.S. health and regulatory agencies are not interested in addressing the root cause of disease is evidenced by their nutrition standards, Means suggested. For example, 95 percent of the committee that sets U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines for nutrition standards is “paid for by food companies.”
These guidelines say that a two-year-old can consume a diet with 10 percent of added sugar, according to Means, who noted that the group is “completely corrupt.”
He added that 90 percent of government subsidies fund processed food, with 10 percent of all food stamp funding devoted to soda alone. “We’re the only country in the world that allows that,” Means told Carlson.
Against this setting, U.S. health agencies are promoting a drug that Means said is “medically” an “absolute disaster.”
Americans have been filing lawsuits due to severe gastrointestinal issues caused by Ozempic, including stomach paralysis. “We’re seeing most people that take the drug within the first year come off it because… the stomach issues are so pronounced,” said Means.
Disturbingly, the drug has been linked to depression and suicidal thoughts frequently enough that the European Union has launched a probe into its effects on suicidal ideation, said Means.
He explained that this makes sense, because the drug induces “gut dysfunction,” and the vast majority of serotonin, which “produces your contentment and happiness,” is “made in the gut.”
Despite these alarming outcomes, the AAP is promoting the drug for obese teenagers, noted Means.
In fact, groups like the AAP and the American Diabetes Association (ADA) receive the majority of their funding from pharma even as they “have statutory authority to create the standard care for how we practice medicine.”
Major media outlets do not alert the public to any of these facts, nor the fact that Ozempic’s distributor, Novo Nordisk, is “the largest spender on foundational obesity research,” according to Means, or that it “has given $30 million in direct bribes to obesity doctors.”
“You would be hard pressed to find a doctor who treats obesity in this country who has not received some kind of donation [or] research grant… from Novo,” Means told Carlson.
The health executive said there are real potential political remedies for these problems but is skeptical that they will be enforced while Big Pharma’s tentacles remain in major health institutions.
“The president tomorrow can tell the FDA that the U.S. can no longer be the only country in the world that allows Big Pharma ads on TV news,” said Means.
He could also forbid NIH funding and government grants to anyone with “conflicts of interest.”
“That would sound like a reasonable policy to 95 percent the American people. I think that’s unimpeachable bipartisan policy,” said Means, but he believes that would “cause a conniption.”
The government could further alter agricultural subsidies to promote healthy food and restrict conflicts of interest in universities, which he called “essentially research and development labs for pharma.”
Means questioned why doctors aren’t prescribing “food interventions” and “exercise” for their patients with pre-diabetes.
“If you actually follow the science, that would be the correct medical intervention to reverse that,” he told Carlson.
“A doctor actually can write a note for exercise and food and that actually can open up medical tax advantage dollars and other insurance dollars… But the second you get someone off the chronic disease treadmill, that’s not a profitable patient. There’s nothing more profitable for the pharmaceutical industry than, frankly, a sick kid.”
U.S. citizens: Demand Congress investigate soaring excess death rates