Imagine that an executive of a major corporation sits down for dinner at a restaurant. Unbeknownst to him, it&#8217;s a sting operation. Everything he says is being recorded. Very quickly, in order to impress someone he thinks is interested in him, the executive confesses that his company is lying to the American public. In secret, the executive says, they&#8217;re thinking about conducting extremely dangerous medical experiments within the borders of the United States — and these experiments are similar to the ones in Wuhan that led to the COVID pandemic. Then the executive admits that government regulators aren&#8217;t scrutinizing these experiments as much as they should, for the simple reason that they don&#8217;t want to jeopardize their potential future job opportunities at the corporation. And then imagine that, once the executive realizes he&#8217;s on camera and that he&#8217;s just confessed to a fraud on the American public, he begins screaming and crawling on the floor of the restaurant. In his hysteria, he pushes people away, tries to hide his face, and ultimately runs away. He demonstrates a clear consciousness of guilt, in other words.
What do you think the end result of this kind of episode might be? In a rational world, you might expect, at a minimum, that this executive would be fired, and that his company would immediately be investigated — both by the government, and by every media organization in the country. After all, it&#8217;s not every day that a corporate executive admits that his company is working on research that could cause another pandemic. He also just divulged trade secrets on camera, which you&#8217;d think would upset his bosses.
But in reality, none of those things happened. 
The situation I just described took place in early 2023, when Project Veritas secretly filmed a senior official in Pfizer&#8217;s research and development division. You might remember that whole episode. Pfizer came out and denied, essentially, that the executive had meant what he said. As far as we know, the company took no action against him. In the end, Pfizer, needless to say, did not suffer any significant consequences. They remain one of the largest and most profitable corporations on the planet. But incredibly, the people who exposed the Pfizer executive didn&#8217;t fare so well. It was like Pfizer pulled a Reverse Uno card. 
For one thing, Project Veritas did not survive. It collapsed soon afterwards. So did the one show on cable news that covered Project Veritas&#8217; reporting, Fox News&#8217; &#8220;Tucker Carlson Tonight.&#8221; They were taken off the air shortly after covering the Pfizer sting operation, for reasons that remain officially undisclosed. To restate: Less than five months after a Pfizer executive was exposed and humiliated on camera, everyone who talked about the scandal was deplatformed. Meanwhile the executive went back to work.
If you wanted to illustrate the extraordinary power that the pharmaceutical industry has in this country, you&#8217;d be hard pressed to find a better example. One way or another, people who criticize them tend to lose their platforms. That&#8217;s a level of protection that very few other corporations have, regardless of their financial situation. Tesla, for example, is about ten times the size of Pfizer by market cap. And as we all know, they&#8217;re subjected to constant media attacks. So what is it about the pharmaceutical industry, specifically, that makes them so hard to criticize?
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1563-member-exclusive">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
The leading theory, which we&#8217;ve talked about before, is that companies like Pfizer essentially buy off the media. You can&#8217;t watch Fox or CNN or MSNBC without seeing an ad from the pharmaceutical industry. In total, the pharmaceutical industry <a href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-159740117?utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spends</a> something like $5 billion on advertising every year — which in some years, is <a href="https://marylandmatters.org/2024/01/19/report-finds-some-drug-manufacturers-spend-more-on-advertising-executives-salaries-than-new-research/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more</a> than they spend on research and development. And a lot of this spending is concentrated on news stations. As the journalist Kyle Becker reported on his Substack, &#8220;Nearly 31% of ad minutes on major nightly news broadcasts in 2024 came from pharmaceutical brands.&#8221; If you watch any amount of cable news, you know that figure is probably accurate. Turn the television on, and you&#8217;ll probably see one of these ads within five minutes. These are among the most lucrative ad purchases — pushing drugs like Ozempic, Skyrizi, &#8220;Vyvgart Hytrulo,&#8221; and so on. Naturally, that kind of spending leads to favorable coverage. Big Pharma doesn&#8217;t even need to establish any kind of quid pro quo, or request anything from the news networks. It&#8217;s just generally understood that, if you&#8217;re working for one of these networks, you should go easy on the pharma giants.
This dynamic is one of the reasons why a lot of people took notice recently, on hearing the news that RFK Jr. and the HHS had supposedly implemented a total ban on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. Those reports turned out to be inaccurate, at least for the time being. But RFK Jr. has pledged to implement a similar ban in the past. And he&#8217;s been very clear about his reasoning. While he was campaigning for Trump last year, and while he was leading his own presidential bid, for example, RFK Jr. made the point that pharmaceutical advertising has compromised the news industry. He&#8217;s also said that, in part because of these advertisements, Americans spend far more on prescription drugs than pretty much every other major country. By some estimates we spend more than twice as much.
And it&#8217;s logical to conclude that advertising plays some role in those numbers. When people see an advertisement for a new prescription drug, they&#8217;re more likely to tell their doctor they want it, as opposed to a cheaper generic brand. Keep in mind, only two countries on the planet allow direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising: the United States and New Zealand. The vast majority of the civilized world has rejected this kind of marketing. And one of the obvious consequences of this carve-out for big pharma is that they sell a lot more drugs to people who otherwise wouldn&#8217;t pay for them. They wouldn&#8217;t spend $5 billion a year on advertisements if that weren&#8217;t true. (And this isn&#8217;t even getting into Big Pharma advertisements and solicitations that target physicians and other professionals).
Just to give one example, in 2022, the manufacturer of the drug Skyrizie, AbbVie, spent around $229 million advertising the drug that year. The next year, AbbVie decided to increase its advertising budget for the drug by more than double. And the results were clear: drug sales went up to $7.8 billion, an increase of roughly 50% year-over-year. There was no major FDA approval that occurred in this period. The drug&#8217;s formula didn&#8217;t change in some way. Instead, more people heard about it, so more people asked their doctors for it. And by the way, the vast majority of the $7.8 billion came from customers in the United States, because they&#8217;re pretty much the only people seeing the advertisements.
This advertising exemption, of course, is just one of several carve-outs that Big Pharma enjoys in this country. It&#8217;s also nearly impossible to sue them when one of their vaccines ends up hurting or killing you, thanks to a federal law passed three decades ago. But the advertising carve-out is one of the most important ones, because it has a lot of downstream effects that aren&#8217;t immediately obvious. One of those effects is that the ads increase the price of the drugs. When billions of dollars are spent on advertising, inevitably that cost will be passed on to the consumers. This is basic economics and common sense, and doctors see it everyday. As far back as a decade ago — when direct-to-consumer advertising was much less common than it is today — the American Medical Association noticed the problem. They voted to ban all direct-to-consumer advertising.
The chair of the AMA, a woman named Patrice Harris, announced that, “Today’s vote in support of an advertising ban reflects concerns among physicians about the negative impact of commercially-driven promotions, and the role that marketing costs play in fueling escalating drug prices. Direct-to-consumer advertising also inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate.”
It&#8217;s true that, by law, these advertisements have to list all of the potential side effects. Invariably, they rattle them off at the end of the commercial, and they do it so quickly that you can&#8217;t really tell what&#8217;s happening in some cases. Pretty much everyone ignores these disclaimers at this point, because they all end up sounding like a bizarre list of horrible afflictions, always ending in death or paralysis or something catastrophic. You can watch an ad for Claritin and they&#8217;ll tell you that the side effects could include getting hit by a train or something. It&#8217;s almost as if the drugmakers have trained us to become numb to all of these potential side effects, and to think they&#8217;re all extremely rare and unlikely to occur.
<h3><a href="https://www.amiracist.com/?_gl=1*jtghwp*_gcl_au*ODQ1NjYzNTg2LjE3Mjg5MDk3OTE.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczMDEyMDgwOS40OS4xLjE3MzAxMjA4MzkuMzAuMC4w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MATT WALSH&#8217;S &#8216;AM I RACIST?&#8217; NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+</a></h3>
That&#8217;s because, even with the often comically long disclaimer at the end of these drug commercials, the ads still don&#8217;t do enough to emphasize the potential side effects and dangers of the drugs. They don&#8217;t discuss the relative risk of every side effect, or how common they are, for example. And that makes sense because ads — regardless of who&#8217;s making them — are meant to manipulate and create an emotional response in a very short period of time. That&#8217;s fine when you&#8217;re selling cars or clothing or whatever. But it just shouldn&#8217;t be the way medical treatments are presented to the public. People should consult with professionals when they&#8217;re seeking these treatments, instead of watching paid actors sing a song about it.
But pharmaceutical ads, by design, short-circuit this process. They allow Big Pharma companies to sell the disease, not just the cure. They convince people that they have such-and-such a disorder and enlist them to go to their doctor and request the drug to treat it. This is totally backwards. You&#8217;re supposed to go to the doctor with your symptoms, not with a wishlist of drugs you want to receive. Pharma ads have helped to turn doctors into glorified drug dealers. About a dozen studies bear this out. Patients who go to the doctor and say &#8220;I saw an ad for Paxlovid&#8221; or &#8220;I saw an ad for Prozac&#8221; are a lot more likely to get that drug, than a patient who simply presents with depression-related symptoms. And on top of that, these advertisements have also contributed to the perception that, whatever problem you might have — whether it&#8217;s depression, or &#8220;feeling like you&#8217;re in the wrong body,&#8221; or whatever — that a drug from Big Pharma can be the solution. As we&#8217;ve discussed, this is a sentiment that has ruined the lives of thousands of people, including children.
Part of the reason this perception has been allowed to fester, as Liz Wheeler pointed out the other day, is that there&#8217;s no critical reporting on Big Pharma in the mainstream press. The pharmaceutical industry is allowed to buy billions of dollars&#8217; worth of advertising, which presents them as the solution to everyone&#8217;s problems. And then the press — along with many scientific institutions that also receive money from Big Pharma— don&#8217;t have any incentive to contradict the narrative. If and when HHS does ban these advertisements, then suddenly, that incentive will reappear. Very quickly, corporate media will fail, because they&#8217;ll be deprived of most of their advertising revenue. And in their place will be a slew of investigations by actual journalists into the various grotesque abuses of power by the medical establishment in recent years — on everything from gender ideology to the COVID shot.
As of right now, again, it appears that the reports were wrong about an imminent ban on these direct-to-consumer advertisements. But there are reasons to think that RFK Jr. and HHS are still planning to implement one. If that comes to pass — and there are indicators it will — then it would inevitably set up a major legal battle between Big Pharma and the federal government on First Amendment grounds. They will claim that they have the constitutional right to flood the airwaves with sales pitches for extremely potent medications that could ruin your life. But they don&#8217;t have that right, any more than the local drug dealer does. If RFK Jr. can win this fight, then in one fell swoop, he will destroy the corporate press, save billions of dollars for Americans, and usher in a new era of skepticism for an industry that badly needs it. He would be the single most consequential HHS secretary in the history of this country. All he needs to do is what pretty much every country in the world is already doing, which is to tell Big Pharma to get off our televisions.

Ozempic, Victoza and Wegovy, injectable prescription weight loss medicines.

All The Reasons Why Big Pharma Commercials Should Be Banned

advertising

Big Pharma

Department of Health and Human Services

Doctors

Drugs

Matt Walsh

Opinion

Ozempic

Pfizer

Project Veritas

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Imagine we&#8217;re back in the late 1980s or early 1990s. You&#8217;re feeling depressed and no one wants to talk to you, so you pay a psychiatrist to listen to your problems. But even after talking things out with your shrink, you&#8217;re still not feeling great. All hope seems lost. Then the shrink tells you not to despair, because you have the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial for a new class of drug that has the potential to cure all of your symptoms, called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs.
If you enter the trial, you have a chance of getting the new SSRI drug, or you could get a placebo that does nothing. You&#8217;re told it&#8217;s a win-win: If you participate in the clinical trial, Big Pharma will get some more data on whether this new class of drugs actually works. And you have a chance of being cured. If you&#8217;re not cured, then in all likelihood, the worst-case scenario isn&#8217;t a big deal. Either you get a placebo and nothing changes, or you get the real drug, which has relatively modest side effects — like dry mouth, nausea, dizziness, and so on. And in exchange for enduring those side effects, your depression might go away. So what do you have to lose?
This was the process drug companies used to convince the world that SSRIs worked. After running a bunch of &#8220;double-blind&#8221; clinical trials, they found that people who took the SSRIs ultimately reported that they felt better than people who received the placebo. Therefore, we were told that the whole &#8220;serotonin theory of depression&#8221; must be true. After all, when people took SSRIs and had more serotonin in their brains, their depression went away. The people who took the sugar pill didn&#8217;t do as well. So there you have it. Science wins again.
There&#8217;s a major problem with this whole methodology, however. It&#8217;s a problem that somehow didn&#8217;t occur to any of the media outlets or physicians who pushed SSRIs for decades. You might have to think about it for a few minutes, but eventually it becomes obvious. Here&#8217;s the issue: In practice, these clinical trials weren&#8217;t actually double-blind. The vast majority of patients were able to &#8220;break blind,&#8221; as they say in the industry. And that means they were able to figure out whether they got the real SSRI or the placebo. That&#8217;s because, in most cases, the patients who got the real drug very quickly noticed they were experiencing some of the side effects. After all, if you take a pill and you start experiencing dry mouth or nausea or something like that, then you&#8217;ll probably conclude that you&#8217;re taking an active medication. And that&#8217;s exactly what happened in many of these trials. In fact, in one study, <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4172306/#c25" target="_blank" rel="noopener">conducted</a> by researchers at Columbia, 89% of participants correctly guessed that they were on the SSRI. That&#8217;s an extremely high number for a clinical trial.
Now you can probably see the issue. If the studies aren&#8217;t really double-blind, then we have no way of knowing if the SSRIs actually improved people&#8217;s moods. It&#8217;s quite possible that these patients were actually feeling better because they thought they were taking a wonder drug. And then they convinced themselves that it was working, so they told the therapist they were improving. This is commonly referred to as the &#8220;placebo effect,&#8221; and the only way to defeat it — particularly when you&#8217;re trying to assess the effectiveness of psychoactive drugs — is with double-blind studies. And that didn&#8217;t happen with SSRIs.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1539-the-matt-walsh-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
This is not some crackpot theory, by the way. A few years ago, a researcher at Harvard named Irving Kirsch <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4172306/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found:</a>
<blockquote>Analysis of the published data and the unpublished data that were hidden by drug companies reveals that most (if not all) of the benefits are due to the placebo effect &#8230; The relatively small differences between drug and placebo in antidepressant trials are at least in part due to &#8216;breaking blind&#8217; and discerning that one is in the drug group, because of the side effects produced by the drug.</blockquote>
Kirsch goes on to suggest that, instead of SSRIs, maybe all patients should be given a placebo. After all, based on the FDA&#8217;s data, less than 45% of SSRI trials showed a statistically significant benefit of the SSRI over a placebo. And the placebo, of course, has no side effects.
But as we all know, there&#8217;s no money in prescribing sugar pills. So instead, doctors and the pharmaceutical industry pushed SSRIs. Based on these garbage clinical trials — which fall apart under the slimmest possible scrutiny — the use of SSRIs among teenagers and adults in this country increased by almost 400% from the early 1990&#8217;s to 2006. And it kept going up. By 2014, one in ten adults was filling an SSRI prescription. From 2015 to 2021, SSRI use increased by another 35%. We&#8217;re talking about tens of millions of prescriptions here.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans suffering from depression has kept increasing. According to Gallup, in 2023, &#8220;The percentage of U.S. adults who report having been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lifetime reached 29.0%, nearly 10 percentage points higher than in 2015.&#8221; In other words, we&#8217;re more depressed than ever, and at the same time, we&#8217;re taking more antidepressants than ever.
These prescriptions have continued even after one of the most prominent medical journals on the planet admitted that actually, doctors no longer think low serotonin levels are linked to depression. In other words, if these drugs actually work, then no one can actually explain why. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Quoting</a> from the journal Molecular Psychiatry: &#8220;Our comprehensive review of the major strands of research on serotonin shows there is no convincing evidence that depression is associated with, or caused by, lower serotonin concentrations or activity. Most studies found no evidence of reduced serotonin activity in people with depression compared to people without. &#8230; This review suggests that the huge research effort based on the serotonin hypothesis has not produced convincing evidence of a biochemical basis to depression.&#8221;
I&#8217;ll say that again. &#8220;This review suggests that the huge research effort based on the serotonin hypothesis has not produced convincing evidence of a biochemical basis to depression.&#8221; This was a paper published in the summer of 2022, by one of the top journals in the entire field of medicine. No serious person disputes it.
And yet, to this day, if you suggest that depression isn&#8217;t related to a chemical imbalance, as I did this week, you will be dogpiled for doing so. It’s been impossible to have anything approaching an honest conversation about depression and SSRIs because many of the people on these drugs will lash out with blind rage if you even suggest that depression might have causes that go deeper than “chemical imbalances.” If you try to talk about the problem of despair with any depth or nuance at all, you are screamed out of the room by drug addicts who don’t know they’re drug addicts. The truth is, though, that none of the support for SSRIs is based in reality. This whole class of drugs has been peddled to tens of millions of people based on complete fabrications. It&#8217;s not an overstatement to say that this is one of the great medical scandals of our time.
What&#8217;s changing now is that, finally, someone in a position of authority is finally willing to investigate these drugs — and many other drugs like them. A few days ago, via executive order, the Trump administration established something called the &#8220;Make America Healthy Again Commission,&#8221; or &#8220;MAHA,&#8221; and it&#8217;ll be headed by RFK Jr. The purpose of the commission, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/establishing-the-presidents-make-america-healthy-again-commission/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the White House, is to determine why Americans have shorter life expectancies than people living in other nations — as well as higher rates of chronic diseases like cancer and asthma. Part of this effort means assessing the, &#8220;prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs.&#8221; Watch:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
HHS Secretary RFK Jr. pledges “NOTHING is gonna be off limits” in chronic disease investigation
“The childhood vaccine schedule, electromagnetic radiation, glyphosate, other pesticides, ultra processed foods, artificial food additives, SSRI and other psychiatric drugs, PFAs,… <a href="https://t.co/kWV2LHuqTG">pic.twitter.com/kWV2LHuqTG</a>
&mdash; Holden Culotta (@Holden_Culotta) <a href="https://twitter.com/Holden_Culotta/status/1891888695185375248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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As of right now, as you heard, RFK&#8217;s commission is going to be focused on gathering data. They&#8217;re not banning anything outright. They&#8217;re not punishing doctors for prescribing anything. Instead, they&#8217;re doing what the government should&#8217;ve done several decades ago. They&#8217;re looking at the existing evidence and determining whether it&#8217;s valid or not. They&#8217;re not going to simply accept &#8220;clinical trials&#8221; without looking closely at them. They&#8217;re going to see whether it makes sense to keep prescribing these drugs to so many Americans, particularly young people.
You have to wonder what kind of person would object to a fact-finding effort like this. After all, if SSRIs (and the other drugs he mentioned) actually work as advertised, then the extra scrutiny wouldn&#8217;t be a problem at all. But RFK Jr. has received a lot of push back already. Newsweek, for example, recently took aim at RFK&#8217;s claim that antidepressants can be more addictive than heroin. They cited a Stanford professor as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/rfk-jr-antidepressants-ssris-drugs-maha-2032297" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saying</a>: &#8220;Antidepressants and heroin are in different universes when it comes to addiction risk. In my 35 years in the addiction field, I&#8217;ve met only two or three people who thought they were addicted to antidepressants versus thousands who were addicted to heroin and other opioids.&#8221;
So we&#8217;re meant to conclude that RFK is a conspiracy theorist for even suggesting that SSRIs can cause dependency. Just a few years ago, however, that was not a conspiracy theory at all. It was settled science. In 2018, the New York Times published an article entitled, &#8220;Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit.&#8221; Here&#8217;s some of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/health/antidepressants-withdrawal-prozac-cymbalta.html?rsrc=ss&amp;unlocked_article_code=1.s04.GyfR.MCfR9TrwZ4dZ&amp;smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare" target="_blank" rel="noopener">relevant findings</a>: &#8220;In New Zealand, where prescriptions are at historic highs, a survey of long-term users found that withdrawal was the most common complaint, cited by three-quarters of long-term users. &#8230; In a recent survey of 250 long-term users of psychiatric drugs — most commonly antidepressants — about half who wound down their prescriptions rated the withdrawal as severe. Nearly half who tried to quit could not do so because of these symptoms. In another study of 180 longtime antidepressant users, withdrawal symptoms were reported by more than 130. Almost half said they felt addicted to antidepressants.&#8221;
Now, if you compare those numbers to the percentage of heroin users who become addicted within a month of using the drug, you&#8217;ll find that RFK actually has a point. By one <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2681168" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimate</a>, up to 38% of new heroin users become dependent within a year. That&#8217;s a lot, obviously, but it&#8217;s less than the number of antidepressant users who reported feeling severe withdrawal symptoms.
This is why RFK&#8217;s commission is an important step. It&#8217;s clear we have a lot of evidence that antidepressants are causing far more harm than most people realize. But they&#8217;re not seeing the evidence because it&#8217;s being suppressed. A transparent commission can solve that problem. It can also address this objection, which was <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/kennedy-rfk-antidepressants-ssri-school-shootings/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">just published</a> by the Left-wing outlet Mother Jones.: &#8220;In a 2023 livestream on X with Elon Musk, [RFK] claimed that &#8216;tremendous circumstantial evidence&#8217; suggested people taking antidepressants were more likely to commit school shootings. (Actually, most school shooters were not taking those drugs, evidence shows.).&#8221;
This is another common refrain you hear from defenders of SSRIs. They say &#8220;most school shooters&#8221; were not taking SSRIs. As we&#8217;ve previously discussed, there are two major problems with this line. First of all, we don&#8217;t know what drugs a school shooter was taking unless the family discloses it. The police and hospitals won&#8217;t tell anyone, citing privacy laws. And in pretty much no case does the family definitely state that the shooter wasn&#8217;t taking any kind of medication. Secondly, a lot of &#8220;mass shootings&#8221; are really gang violence, and those incidents get lumped in with school shootings. So they flood the data set, and make it hard to determine whether SSRIs are influencing a certain kind of shooting.
Anecdotally, of course, you&#8217;ll find plenty of evidence that SSRIs might be linked to school shootings. From Columbine to Northern Illinois University to the Navy Yard to the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, to the black church in Charleston to the Old National Bank in Kentucky, the shooters were all confirmed to be on antidepressants. In response to these shootings, you might say that correlation doesn&#8217;t prove causation. After all, these shooters were taking SSRIs because they were unstable. That doesn&#8217;t necessarily prove SSRIs made their condition worse.
And that&#8217;s true. But there is additional, affirmative evidence to believe that SSRIs are in fact making these shooters&#8217; condition worse. For one thing, there&#8217;s the FDA black box label on these drugs, which indicates that they can &#8220;increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior.&#8221; And then there&#8217;s this. A few years ago, researchers writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5066537/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> that antidepressants doubled the risk of suicidality and violence, when they&#8217;re given to healthy people with no mental health disorders. From the journal: &#8220;Antidepressants double the occurrence of events in adult healthy volunteers that can lead to suicide and violence.&#8221;
How is that possible? The truth is we have no idea. We have no clue why these drugs supposedly work in the first place. And we have no idea why they might turn normal people into violent maniacs. It&#8217;s obviously a very concerning finding, especially given how much doctors are over-prescribing these drugs to any patient who claims to be depressed.
Doctors would rather prescribe those drugs than tell patients the truth about their depression, and how to deal with it. I can say that, in my personal life, I have known many people who take antidepressants. And in almost every case, there are glaringly obvious things in their lives that would cause any normal person to be depressed. Depression is a totally rational response to their circumstance. Instead of making lifestyle changes or dealing with the underlying trauma, however, they are given drugs that effectively numb their brain. It’s like giving someone a painkiller to make it hurt less when they put their hand on a hot stove. The stove is still burning them. The pain from the stove is not the problem. Their hands and nervous system work just fine. It’s where they’re putting their hand, that’s the problem.
The reason the medical establishment and Democrats are panicking over RFK&#8217;s commission is simple. The moment people realize they have agency — when they realize they can take their hand off the stove — they become a lot harder to control. They also become a lot harder to monetize. For Big Pharma and corporate media outlets that sell advertising space to Big Pharma, the implications are obviously dire. Nevertheless, for Americans hoping to reverse this country&#8217;s long-standing public health decline, after a generation of junk science and fake clinical trials, it&#8217;s a change that&#8217;s long overdue.

Secretary Of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Visits “The Ingraham Angle”

Democrats Enter Panic Mode As RFK Sets Out To Make America Healthy Again

Depression

Science

If you weren’t paying close attention on Super Bowl Sunday, you might have missed the <a href="https://x.com/wearehims/status/1888774632955691247" target="_blank" rel="noopener">commercial</a> from telehealth company Hims and Hers that has generated some online controversy. 
In the ad, the company correctly points out the “deadliest epidemic” facing Americans: obesity. Hims and Hers nailed it on the head with its description of the weight loss industry’s failure to keep Americans healthy, but despite the convincing and emotional message of the ad, it still missed the point when its solution was just more medications. 
Instead of pushing a healthy lifestyle, Hims and Hers advertised a compounded semaglutide, which is basically just a substitute for Ozempic. In 2023, the FDA received numerous <a href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety-information-patients-and-providers/fdas-concerns-unapproved-glp-1-drugs-used-weight-loss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a> of adverse effects after people used compounded semaglutide. Of course, the Hims and Hers ad didn’t mention this, and sadly, many health care providers lead people to believe that major health issues, such as obesity, can be cured with another medication, another injectable, or another prescription. 
That’s not what will give you true health. 
True health comes from a lifestyle that prioritizes your body’s needs every day, not some quick-fix scheme to magically make you feel better. Taking care of your health is hard work, but it’s possible, and Responsible Man is here to help you take charge of your body, not to turn your body over to some medication. 
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Responsible Man shares common ownership with The Daily Wire.

Obesity

Health Care Giant’s Super Bowl Ad Correctly Calls Out Obesity Epidemic But Misses The Solution

Health Care

Super Bowl

Sen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/bernie-sanders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bernie Sanders</a> (I-VT) erupted during a heated exchange with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the U.S. Senate on Thursday after RFK accused him of being corrupt.
The exchange happened during the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee&#8217;s hearing to consider the nomination of Kennedy to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
“If we want to make America healthy, will you assure the American people that you will fight to do what every other major country on earth does—guarantee healthcare to every single American?” Sanders asked.
“I’m going to make America healthier than any other country in the world right now,” Kennedy responded.
“Will you guarantee to do what every other major country is?&#8221; Sanders interrupted him. &#8220;It’s a simple question, Bobby.”
Kennedy fired back: “The problem of corruption is not just in the federal agencies, it’s in Congress, too. Almost all the members of this panel are accepting, including yourself, millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry to protect their interests.”
&#8220;Oh no, no, no! No, no, no,&#8221; Sanders responded. &#8220;I ran for president like you. I got millions and millions of contributions. They did not come from the executives. Not one nickel of PAC money from the pharmaceutical industry. They came from workers.&#8221;
“In 2020, you were the single largest recipient of pharmaceutical dollars,&#8221; Kennedy responded.
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Bernie Erupts After RFK Jr. Accuses Him Of Being ‘Single Largest Receiver Of Pharmaceutical Money’" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DJ-BmvonQDU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Senate Holds Confirmation Hearings For HHS Secretary Nominee Robert Kennedy

WATCH: Bernie Sanders Erupts After RFK Jr. Accuses Him Of Corruption

Bernie Sanders

Congress

Politics

There&#8217;s a civil trial going on right now in the state of California that hasn&#8217;t gotten much attention at all. For the most part, the corporate press doesn&#8217;t want to talk about it, probably because it would upset some of their biggest advertisers. But if you have any interest in learning more about how the alleged &#8220;science&#8221; concerning vaccines actually works in this country, it&#8217;s one of the most important cases that&#8217;s ever been tried.
I&#8217;m talking about a product liability lawsuit that&#8217;s underway against the pharmaceutical giant Merck. The litigation relates to allegations that Merck concealed serious side effects of its &#8220;Gardasil&#8221; vaccine, which promised to protect people from getting HPV — a virus that can lead to cervical cancer in women. Merck of course denies the allegations, and the jury hasn&#8217;t returned a verdict yet.
But even without a verdict, the fact that this case has made it to trial, in and of itself, is worth talking about. Concerns about the Gardasil vaccine have been widespread for nearly two decades, since it was first introduced to the market. Here for example are two news clips from 2008 and 2009, related to the first version of the vaccine. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 HPV Vaccine Risks" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NVKr59WovsA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Put aside for a second whether Gardasil was indeed dangerous, or whether Merck lied in its advertising. Those are questions that I don&#8217;t pretend to be an authority on. That&#8217;s for a jury to decide. The really interesting question is why it took until 2025 for anyone to resolve, definitively, the question of whether this vaccine is actually as safe as advertised. The fact that the judge has allowed this case to go to trial means the allegations, at a minimum, probably aren&#8217;t frivolous. So how was this vaccine — which has been taken by countless people — allowed to escape this kind of serious scrutiny for so long? 
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1526-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
That fact alone — the existence of an information blackout on such an important vaccine — is of course just one of many harrowing, unexplained failures of the public health establishment in this country. If you pull up one of the complaints against Merck, which was filed by the law firm Wisner Baum, you&#8217;ll find a lot of other very disturbing allegations too. One woman, the main plaintiff in the case, alleges she&#8217;s been confined to a wheelchair since the age of 16 because of the vaccine. 
There are also allegations that Merck paid doctors and nonprofits thousands of dollars to promote the vaccine, as well as claims that Merck lied about the vaccine&#8217;s contents. Normally, allegations like this never see the inside of a courthouse, because the pharmaceutical industry enjoys a broad liability shield. This case is a rare exception.
I mention the lawsuit over the Gardasil vaccine because it came up yesterday during the confirmation hearings for Donald Trump&#8217;s nominee to be the next HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. That&#8217;s because RFK Jr. worked with the law firm that brought the case against Merck, and he stands to benefit financially from the outcome. In other words, RFK Jr. played a role in finding the plaintiffs for this very rare, and very important lawsuit that&#8217;s currently in progress against Big Pharma. Here&#8217;s how Elizabeth Warren questioned Kennedy about it. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 Elizabeth Warren" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TFGwrLnEmSk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
What&#8217;s extraordinary about this moment is that Warren has built her entire career around the lie that she&#8217;s a populist — or at least, someone who&#8217;s extremely skeptical of entrenched corporate power, particularly when it&#8217;s held by banks. But in this case, Warren is pretty much indistinguishable from a lawyer for Big Pharma. She&#8217;s berating RFK Jr. because he took Big Pharma to court over the HPV vaccine. And even though he&#8217;s stated that he won&#8217;t pursue any lawsuits while he&#8217;s in government, it&#8217;s not enough for her. She wants him to commit to renouncing lawsuits that he&#8217;s already participated in, or that he might pursue after leaving office. And he wouldn&#8217;t agree to that.
I&#8217;m not going to speculate on Warren&#8217;s motivations. You can point to various campaign contributions she&#8217;s received from the pharmaceutical industry, as many people already have. Actually, on second thought, I am speculating that Elizabeth Warren is a bought and paid for shill for Big Pharma. Not speculating but outright accusing her of it. Still the truth is, this is a much larger problem than Elizabeth Warren. Throughout the hearing, RFK Jr. was repeatedly attacked by Democrats simply for questioning the safety and efficacy of various drugs that are widely prescribed. These are drugs we&#8217;re assured are effective, even though there are very real reasons to doubt that. And in particular, Kennedy was hit over his skepticism of SSRIs, in the most unfair and disingenuous way imaginable. Here&#8217;s Tina Smith of Minnesota, in one of the most egregious moments from this hearing:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 Smith spars with RFK" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XrPX7fhzUFQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
RFK&#8217;s response at the end of that clip is obviously the right one. Remember the 2023 mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine? The shooter killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar. We still don&#8217;t know what, if any, drugs he was taking at the time of the incident.
The same is true of the trans-identifying mass shooter here in Tennessee. The Tennessee Star has reported, citing a search warrant, that Vanderbilt had prescribed SSRIs to the shooter. But we don&#8217;t know if the shooter was actively taking those medications, because neither the police nor Vanderbilt will tell us. And therefore, it wouldn&#8217;t show up in any &#8220;studies&#8221; that purport to show how many mass shooters were on SSRIs.
This is the norm, when it comes to these academic papers on SSRIs. And as I&#8217;ve <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YPzTZJubSc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previously discussed</a>, there&#8217;s another way that these &#8220;studies&#8221; hide the number of mass shooters who are on SSRIs. Basically, they include inner city violence in their tally of mass shootings. So if a bunch of gang members in the South Side of Chicago shoot up a birthday party or something, that gets added to the tally of mass shootings. And because those kinds of shootings happen every day in places like Chicago — for reasons that have nothing to do with SSRIs, like turf disputes and so on — the authors of these studies can make it seem like SSRIs don&#8217;t cause mass shootings. But they&#8217;re really just obfuscating the central question by flooding the data set with unrelated shootings. The core question — which is whether SSRIs cause otherwise law-abiding young students to shoot their classmates — remains unresolved in medical literature.
It’s not surprise and no secret that young angry males who grow up in the hood with no father figures and get involved in gangs and drug dealing by the age of 12 would turn to violence. There’s no mystery there. But there is a mystery as to why a child who has never been violent, who was not raised by a street gang, who is financially stable, would one day casually execute a dozen classmates for no reason that he can even articulate. Why is that happening? And why is it that so often these kids are on psychiatric medication?
<h3><a href="https://www.amiracist.com/?_gl=1*jtghwp*_gcl_au*ODQ1NjYzNTg2LjE3Mjg5MDk3OTE.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczMDEyMDgwOS40OS4xLjE3MzAxMjA4MzkuMzAuMC4w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MATT WALSH&#8217;S &#8216;AM I RACIST?&#8217; NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+</a></h3>
There are definitely reasons to think SSRIs could play a role in this kind of violence. For one thing, you can look at the warning label on SSRIs, which states that the drugs can actually increase the risk of suicide and violent behavior in some cases. The drugmakers are telling us outright that these drugs can put violent thoughts into your head. They can make you want to lash out violently against yourself or other people. The pharmaceutical companies are telling us that directly. And yet when that thing happens, they will insist that the drug they said can cause it to happen, must not have caused it to happen.
Or you can look at the studies that show that SSRIs can increase the risk of violence in people who aren&#8217;t depressed at all. A few years ago, for example, researchers in Denmark reviewed experiments going back to the 1960s. And they found that, when healthy volunteers — meaning, people with no mental health issues — were given antidepressants, the drugs doubled their risk of &#8220;suicidality and violence.&#8221;
So why did that happen? Why might SSRIs make healthy people more violent?
The honest answer is that we have no idea. Just a few years ago, we learned that there&#8217;s actually no clear link between low serotonin levels and depression. This was the central claim that supposedly justified the mass-adoption of SSRIs in this country, and it&#8217;s completely false. We have no idea what these drugs are actually doing. So maybe we should pump the brakes a bit. That&#8217;s what RFK tried to say yesterday. Here&#8217;s the response he got:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="004 RFK on SSRIs" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2tg3QA_TZeo?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Usually, you expect that in a confirmation hearing, the worst thing that can happen is that the nominee says something disqualifying. But in this case, the senator said something disqualifying. Let me be extremely clear about this: If you need psychiatric drugs in order to function, then you are not fit to serve at the highest levels of government. You&#8217;re not qualified to teach elementary school students or operate heavy machinery, for that matter. You simply cannot claim that you&#8217;re competent to govern if you need to regularly take psychoactive substances. Am I saying that every lawmaker on anti-depressants should be removed from office? Yes, I am absolutely saying that. That should be common sense.
More importantly, RFK is obviously right about SSRIs. When the peer-reviewed journal &#8220;Molecular Psychiatry&#8221; — one of the most prominent journals in the field — admits that depression isn&#8217;t actually caused by a serotonin imbalance, which is what happened in 2022, then it&#8217;s obviously worth taking a close look at a class of antidepressants that&#8217;s entitled, &#8220;Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors.&#8221; If a comprehensive review finds that we were wrong about these drugs for decades, then maybe we need some more information and studies before we prescribe them to millions of people — including children.
But of course, this is a pattern in the healthcare industry. Drugs are approved all the time when they don&#8217;t actually work — at least not in any way that we understand. As RFK Jr. said yesterday, it was a similar story for Alzheimer&#8217;s drugs. Some of these drugs received a lot of funding and fast-track approvals, only to turn out to be completely useless. In one case, the data supporting these drugs was actually faked. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="005 Alzheimers Research" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GLftqaQYl5E?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
By this point you can probably tell that this hearing didn&#8217;t go very well for Democrats. Later on, they tried to attack him for pointing out that Lyme Disease has some very conspicuous origins. Apparently we&#8217;re supposed to think — post-COVID — that it&#8217;s an outlandish conspiracy theory to believe that Lyme Disease could possibly have anything to do with government labs injecting ticks with various exotic diseases.
Then there was this moment, where one Democrat tried to make the point that RFK Jr. doesn&#8217;t believe that germs can cause disease. Then he refuted what she was saying, so she just &#8220;read it into the record&#8221; anyway. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="006 Avian" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VnDwo3b7iXk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
These hearings are all like this. They&#8217;re not actually about getting any kind of thoughtful answer from the nominee. It&#8217;s all drive-by soundbites. It doesn&#8217;t even matter what he says.
But even by this low standard, there was one moment in yesterday&#8217;s hearing that managed to stand out. This moment comes to us from Bernie Sanders. Sanders began by asking RFK Jr. whether healthcare is a human right, and he said no, because no one — especially gluttons or habitual smokers — is entitled to anyone else&#8217;s labor. And then Sanders resorted to berating RFK Jr. for his support of anti-vaccine apparel — specifically, anti-vaccine onesies. Behold one of the greatest moments in modern congressional history:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="007 Bernie Onesies" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dAqC7pt9OGA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
This is the level of seriousness that Democrats are applying to these confirmation hearings. They barely even mentioned gender ideology, or how RFK Jr. plans to end the castration of children in this country. They weren&#8217;t remotely interested in his call for more transparent and accurate data in modern medicine. Instead, one by one, Democrats ran interference for Big Pharma. They talked about anti-vax &#8220;onesies&#8221; and demanded that RFK stop bullying Merck.
Democrats like to pretend that they stand against “corporate greed&#8221; and so on. But you simply cannot pretend to be an avenger for the working class standing against corrupt billionaires if you will also defend the pharmaceutical industry to your dying breath. There is no greater example of corporate greed than what we have seen from Big Pharma.
This is an industry that we know for an absolute fact has pushed literal poison on people, by the millions, and done it all for no reason other than pure profit. This is the industry that supplies actual castration drugs to 13-year-olds. An industry that got millions of Americans hooked on anti-depressants on false pretenses, based on a belief in a chemical imbalance that doesn’t exist. There are dozens of other examples just like this. And they are all things that Democrats don&#8217;t want us to talk about — and have in fact attempted to forcibly prevent us from talking about.
So whatever reservations conservatives have about RFK Jr., it&#8217;s very clear that he needs to be confirmed. We have a real opportunity to install someone who is skeptical of the junk science we&#8217;ve been relentlessly fed for decades, on everything from SSRIs to Alzheimer’s to gender ideology. And after yesterday&#8217;s debacle of a confirmation hearing, it&#8217;s clear we need to take this opportunity now, while we still have it.

Senate Finance Committee Holds Confirmation Hearing For Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Democrats Shill For Big Pharma In RFK Jr. Confirmation Hearing

Elizabeth Warren

A <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-releases-second-interim-staff-report-prescription-drug-middlemen" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> published Tuesday by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) hiked the costs of many important prescription drugs by over 1,000%.
The three largest PBMs — which are owned by CVS Health, Cigna, and UnitedHealth Group — generated over &#8220;$7.3 billion in revenue from dispensing drugs in excess of the drugs’ estimated acquisition costs from 2017-2022,&#8221; according to the FTC. The report found that more than one in five &#8220;specialty drugs&#8221; dispensed by pharmacies affiliated with PBMs were marked up by over 1,000%. Another 41% of drugs were marked up between 100-1,000%. The &#8220;Big 3&#8221; PBMs control between 60-80% of the prescriptions in the U.S.
“The FTC staff’s second interim report finds that the three major pharmacy benefit managers hiked costs for a wide range of lifesaving drugs, including medications to treat heart disease and cancer,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The FTC should keep using its tools to investigate practices that may inflate drug costs, squeeze independent pharmacies, and deprive Americans of affordable, accessible healthcare—and should act swiftly to stop any illegal conduct.”
PBMs act as the middlemen between drug manufacturers, insurance companies, pharmacies, and patients and were originally designed to maintain affordable drug prices for patients while helping drug manufacturers keep their profits. According to the FTC report, however, PBMs have turned into money-making machines while &#8220;squeeze[ing[ independent pharmacies, and depriv[ing] Americans of affordable, accessible healthcare.&#8221;
Austin Ownbey — who represents the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which in turn represents PBMs — spoke during the open commission meeting Tuesday. Ownbey argued, “PCMA has significant concerns that a second interim report regarding specialty drugs is unlikely to be anything other than a piece of advocacy without substantiating evidence.”
“Specialty drugs offer the most effective and, in some cases, the only treatment for illness and conditions that historically had few treatment options, including multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, cancer and autoimmune disorders,” he added, according to <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5085119-ftc-report-pharmacy-benefit-managers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Hill</a>.
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Along with hiking prices for vital prescription drugs, the FTC found that the &#8220;Big 3 PBMs also reimbursed their affiliated pharmacies at a higher rate than they paid unaffiliated pharmacies on nearly every specialty generic drug examined.&#8221; As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-little-known-health-care-middleman-is-becoming-more-powerful-independent-pharmacies-say-that-spells-disaster-for-patients" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire reported</a> last July, independent pharmacies across the country are subject to the dictates of PBMs, which give an unfair advantage to large pharmacy corporations such as CVS, Cigna, and UnitedHealth Group. Independent pharmacists such as Brent Talley, Blake Lamm, and April Lamm Blackford in North Carolina have been sounding the alarm on the rise of PBMs.
“We have lost customers either because the PBM is requiring them to use another store or financially incentivizing them to do so,” Talley told The Daily Wire in July. “But at the same time, the quality of care we’re able to provide has far exceeded Walgreens’ and CVS’.”
Often, local pharmacies will lose money on prescription drugs because the reimbursements they get from a PBM are less than what it costs them to fill a prescription.
“We have to buy bottles to put the medicine in, the caps, the labels, the machines, the printers, all that kind of stuff that are the cost of business, but when I say I’m losing money on prescriptions, I’m losing money on what it cost to get the drug on the shelf,” Blake Lamm said. “That doesn’t even factor in filling the prescription.”
The second interim report was released with bipartisan support in Congress, including from Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), along with Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) and Diana Harshbarger (R-TN).

Prescription drugs

Pharmacy Benefit Managers Marked Up Specialty Drugs By Over 1,000%: FTC Report

Economy

Federal Government

Prescription Drugs

U.S.

In a new interview, President-elect <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> shared how he is taking an open-minded approach to health care after meeting with drug company executives last week.
Trump told NBC&#8217;s Kristen Welker about what he did with his pick to lead the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/robert-f-kennedy-jr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Robert F. Kennedy Jr.</a>, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/dr-oz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Mehmet Oz</a>, his nominee to become Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator, ahead of his second term.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
President Trump: We have to get our chronic disease epidemic under control and make our country HEALTHY again <a href="https://t.co/5o8XCCA8Vc">pic.twitter.com/5o8XCCA8Vc</a>
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1865775287666934172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 8, 2024</a></blockquote>
&#8220;I did something the other night that was a little unusual at Mar-a-Lago,&#8221; Trump said during the &#8220;Meet The Press&#8221; interview that aired on Sunday. &#8220;I called the drug companies. The top drug companies. And I called RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz and some of his people and I said, &#8216;Let&#8217;s all get together and figure out where we&#8217;re going, because we&#8217;re going to do a lot of things.'&#8221;
He said the recent meeting, which <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/12/05/trump-rfk-jr-pfizer-lilly" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> included executives from Pfizer and Eli Lilly, entailed discussions about a wide range of issues.
&#8220;We met for a long time and we talked about pricing and we talked about vaccines, you know, in terms of what happens. We talked about pesticides. We talked about everything,&#8221; Trump said. He added, in an apparent reference to Kennedy: &#8220;And I think a lot of good things are going to come from him. And he&#8217;s not going to upset any system. &#8230; He&#8217;s not looking to, you know, reinvent the wheel, totally. But, when you look at the numbers, we really don&#8217;t have a very healthy country.&#8221;
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Tackling expenses in the pharmaceutical industry is a top priority, Trump indicated.
&#8220;We&#8217;re going to reduce prices because the middleman makes more money than the drug companies, in all fairness to the drug companies,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;There&#8217;s a middleman that nobody even knows who they are. And you look at our prices, they&#8217;re much higher than the prices for the same medicine, for the same stuff.&#8221;
Trump also dismissed the notion that he opposes all vaccines. He expressed support for Kennedy&#8217;s stated position for placing them under increased scrutiny, particularly when it comes to protecting children, and pointed out how autism diagnoses have spiked in recent decades.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not against vaccines,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;The Polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me to get rid of the Polio vaccine, they&#8217;re going to have to work real hard to convince me. I think &#8230; certain vaccines are incredible, but maybe some aren&#8217;t. And if they aren&#8217;t, we have to find out.&#8221;

Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy

‘A Little Unusual’: Trump Opens Up About Meeting With RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, And Drug Company Execs

Donald Trump

Dr. Oz

Health

Vaccines

As Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania says, Donald Trump is doing some “God-tier level trolling.” Many of the picks he is currently making are both hilarious and kind of wonderful.
Yesterday, Trump made a bunch of controversial picks. His most controversial pick, however, was Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
RFK Jr., of course, ran as a Democrat in 2024, and then was basically ousted from the primaries in favor of Joe Biden. Because the Democratic Party said, “No. No one will run against Joe Biden. He&#8217;s too great and important a president.” And then, of course, they took Biden and tossed him off the back of a train when he died on stage in a debate versus Donald Trump.
So, RFK Jr. immediately flipped. First, he became an independent, and then he finally ended up endorsing Trump. Now, he&#8217;s the leader of the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, which is a great purpose for RFK Jr.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2086-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
We had him as a guest on our show <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/is-he-the-last-real-democrat-robert-f-kennedy-jr-member-exclusive">The Sunday Special</a> and he talked extensively about his purpose in making America healthy again. He said, “Listen, many of the biggest issues facing the American people are issues that none of our politicians talk about. Our politicians will talk about tax policy. They&#8217;ll talk about whether to drill or not to drill, but then never talk about the fact that the American people are increasingly unhealthy.”
RFK Jr. went on to say, “If I were in government, my number one job would be to make the American people healthy again. There are a bunch of substances that are in our food and our drink that are banned in Europe and that are replete in all of our products, and they are making us fatter.”
And, by the way, he&#8217;s not wrong about this.
Today, The New York Times published an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/well/obesity-epidemic-america.html">article titled</a> “Three-Quarters of U.S. Adults Are Now Overweight or Obese.”
This has some downstream effects. Because, as it turns out, when you hear statistics about American life expectancy flatlining, about the fact that people are getting high rates of chronic diseases in the United States, that&#8217;s because of what we are eating, what we&#8217;re drinking, and because we never exercise. There are comparable places around the Earth that have higher life expectancies than we do, and that is not because of our medical system.
It is not because American doctors are worse or American hospitals are worse or anything remotely like that. When somebody in Europe has cancer, they&#8217;re coming to the United States for treatment. The reality is that it&#8217;s not our medical system, per se, that&#8217;s broken. Our medical insurance system is broken. Our medical system is not broken. The thing that is broken is our health care system.
According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/well/obesity-epidemic-america.html">The New York Times</a>:
<blockquote>Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study. The findings have wide-reaching implications for the nation’s health and medical costs as it faces a growing burden of weight-related diseases.
The <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01548-4/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a>, published on Thursday in The Lancet, reveals the striking rise of obesity rates nationwide since 1990 — when just over half of adults were overweight or obese — and shows how more people are becoming overweight or obese at younger ages than in the past. Both conditions can raise the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and shorten life expectancy.
Without aggressive intervention, they forecast, the number of overweight and obese people will continue to go up — reaching nearly 260 million people in 2050.
The paper defined “overweight” adults as those who were age 25 and over with a body mass index at or over 25, and “obese” adults as those with a B.M.I. at or over 30.</blockquote>
Now, again, there are a number of things the pharmaceutical industry is attempting to do in order to walk that back. Ozempic would be the most obvious example. But if you can take preventative measures so kids aren&#8217;t obese at age seven — and if that means that we look for different solutions inside the FDA or inside the NIH or inside HHS — generally, that&#8217;s a good thing.
Here, for example, was RFK Jr. talking about the sort of products and services that are available to Americans that are not available in other places, because, as he says, the food industry has a giant lobbying arm, which is true.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The Democrats, who claim to be all about health care have stood by watching other countries ban these poisons that make our kids sick. Enough is enough. President Trump and I are going to stop the mass poisoning of American children. <a href="https://t.co/Rf04MrF9e8">pic.twitter.com/Rf04MrF9e8</a>
&mdash; Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1839012584957042973?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 25, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
So, there&#8217;s nothing wrong with the general mission there. How it actually gets applied in real life is going to be the big question. I&#8217;m sure much of that will come up in a confirmation hearing. How much power should the HHS have to outright ban things in your food? How much power should the HHS have, for example, to hold up new drugs?
One of the big problems in the United States is that it is very difficult to get a new pharmaceutical product approved and very expensive. That&#8217;s the reason why pharmaceuticals are so expensive when it comes to the consumer level, because it&#8217;s not just the R&amp;D you have to do to develop a drug. It&#8217;s also that you then have to go through an extraordinarily rigorous process that very often is replete with red tape. So there are a bunch of problems inside FDA, inside NIH. Many of the studies that are being promulgated by NIH are just crap. They&#8217;re terrible. There&#8217;s a lot to do. There&#8217;s a lot of deadwood to clear out right there.
It&#8217;ll be fascinating to see how RFK Jr. does all of that. Obviously, he&#8217;s a trial lawyer and very often the mentality of a trial lawyer is to find the vulnerability of a particular product to cause causation of a health problem. So if there&#8217;s even a remote causative effect of some sort of product on somebody&#8217;s health, then you can sue based on that and you make a lot of money if you&#8217;re a trial lawyer.
However, is that enough of a standard to ban it, or are we going to get more advisory opinions? Right. None of this is particularly clear at this point.
What is clear, though, is that refocusing America on being healthier while also allowing for more innovation in a lot of these areas would definitely be a good target goal. 
And I think that&#8217;s what <a href="https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1857170020427595797?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1857170020427595797%7Ctwgr%5E533157f7d2b84e337bf78af46b219897f3b55dab%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Ftrump-expected-to-nominate-robert-f-kennedy-jr-for-hhs">President Trump</a> wants.

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It’s MAHA Time: Trump Picks RFK Jr.

Ben Shapiro

Food

The American health care system has long been a convoluted web for patients to climb through, as they deal with the government, insurance companies, and the high cost of drugs that many people need to live comfortably.
Much of the distaste for the U.S. health care system is centered on drug and insurance companies, but over the past decade, a new player in the health care industry has become more powerful: pharmacy benefit managers. 
Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs as they’re commonly called, are the middlemen between drug manufacturers, insurance companies, pharmacies, and by extension, patients. PBMs were originally designed to maintain affordable drug prices for patients while helping drug manufacturers keep their profits, but instead, PBMs have been found to “profit at the expense of patients by inflating drug costs and squeezing Main Street pharmacies,” according to a Federal Trade Commission <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/07/ftc-releases-interim-staff-report-prescription-drug-middlemen">report</a> released on Tuesday. 
As PBMs take away many options, independent pharmacies across the country are subject to the dictates of PBMs, which give an unfair advantage to large pharmacy corporations such as CVS, the FTC report found. “PBMs hold substantial influence over independent pharmacies by imposing unfair, arbitrary, and harmful contractual terms that can impact independent pharmacies’ ability to stay in business and serve their communities,” it said.
One independent drug store that has been sounding the alarm on the rise of PBMs is Hayes Barton Pharmacy, which sits in an upper-class neighborhood just north of downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Hayes Barton Pharmacy is managed by Brent Talley, who bought the local pharmacy in 2018 and currently employs 17 people. 
Talley, along with other independent pharmacists across the country, has seen firsthand how PBMs have reshaped the prescription drug industry and made it nearly impossible for mom-and-pop pharmacies to fill many prescriptions while maintaining a profit. 
“We have lost customers either because the PBM is requiring them to use another store or financially incentivizing them to do so,” Talley told The Daily Wire. “But at the same time, the quality of care we’re able to provide has far exceeded Walgreens’ and CVS’.”
Talley added that his pharmacy has “moved to diversify” to maintain profits and “stabilize” his business amid the growing power of PBMs. 
“Hopefully that [diversification] will sustain itself, but we already have turned down a lot of prescriptions, so how much more of that can we do? It’s hard to say,” he said. 
The three largest PBMs — owned by CVS Health, Cigna, and UnitedHealth Group — control 80% of the prescriptions in the U.S. A New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/business/prescription-drug-costs-pbm.html">investigation</a> into PBMs published last month found that instead of lowering drug costs for patients, PBMs often push patients toward pricier prescription drugs and pay independent pharmacies lowball prices for filling prescriptions. Often, small pharmacies will lose money on prescription drugs because the reimbursements they get from a PBM are less than what it costs them to fill a prescription.
“The P.B.M. negotiates with drug companies, pays pharmacies and helps decide which drugs patients can get at what price. In theory, everyone saves money,” the Times wrote. 
“But those savings appear to be largely a mirage, a product of a system where prices have been artificially inflated so that major P.B.M.s and drug companies can boost their profits while taking credit for reducing prices,” the report added. 
One of the largest PBMs is CVS Caremark, a subsidiary of CVS Health, which has pushed leftist ideology in employee leadership training. The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-cvs-leadership-training-requires-participants-to-confess-privilege-make-allyship-pledges">reported</a> earlier this year that a required leadership training program at CVS put forward a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) action plan that asked participants to confess their privilege and pledge support for social justice causes. 
The health care giant’s revenue was up 11% in 2023 from the previous year, raking in <a href="https://www.managedhealthcareexecutive.com/view/cvs-s-health-services-revenue-grew-to-186-8-billion">$357.8 billion</a>, a total that includes revenue from CVS Caremark. The company says that “CVS Caremark negotiates lower costs for our customers and expands coverage to affordable medications that people need to stay healthy.” But what started as a way to help patients cover the cost of prescription drugs quickly turned into a nightmare for independent pharmacies and their patients. 
Blake Lamm and April Lamm Blackford run Bailey Pharmacy on Deans Street in Bailey, North Carolina, a more rural area of the state. The pharmacy has been around for over 100 years under different names, Lamm said, and the sibling owners currently pay two full-time workers and one part-time employee. 
Blake and April told The Daily Wire that they have more business now than they ever have, but because of PBMs’ unfair contracts for prescriptions, they often take financial hits for filling prescriptions, a pharmacy’s bread and butter. 
“We have to buy bottles to put the medicine in, the caps, the labels, the machines, the printers, all that kind of stuff that are the cost of business, but when I say I’m losing money on prescriptions, I’m losing money on what it cost to get the drug on the shelf,” Blake said. “That doesn’t even factor in filling the prescription.” 
Blake said that while PBMs have a direct negative effect on local pharmacies, in the end, patients in rural areas will face the brunt of the pain. He added that without a local pharmacy, rural patients would be forced to drive long distances or receive their prescriptions through often unreliable mail orders. 
Asked if he has a timeline for how much longer Baily Pharmacy can stay in business if PBMs are allowed to maintain their control of prescriptions, Blake told The Daily Wire, “I feel like we’ve been fighting it for a while, but we’re treading water right now.” 
“I’m trying to tell people when I see them that April and I want to be here for the next 10, 20 years until we decide to retire,” he added. “But at the rate the PBM thing is going, it’s more like maybe another year or two that I would think that we could possibly stay in business.” 
Some states have sought to take action and regulate PBMs. A 2019 Oklahoma law expanding patients’ ability to choose pharmacies and regulating PBMs was <a href="https://www.duanemorris.com/alerts/tenth_circuit_decision_regulating_pharmacy_benefit_managers_remains_place_oklahoma_appeals_0124.html">put on hold</a> by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, forcing the state to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. 
The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA), a powerful lobbying group that represents PBMs, argued that federal laws preempt Oklahoma’s law. A case before the Supreme Court appears favorable for states seeking legislation addressing PBMs as the high court <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/supreme-court-upholds-arkansas-law-regulating-pharmacy-benefit-managers">ruled unanimously</a> in 2020 in favor of an Arkansas law regulating the powerful health care companies.
Tennessee also <a href="https://tnpharm.org/news/news-posts-pages/governor-bill-lee-signs-enforceable-pbm-reform-bill-into-law/">passed</a> a law in 2022 ensuring that patients maintain pharmacy choice and that pharmacies are properly compensated for filling out prescriptions.  
In North Carolina, the state House unanimously passed Rep. Wayne Sasser’s legislation that “would prohibit pharmacy benefits managers from reimbursing pharmacies less than the national average cost of a drug or less than the pharmacy benefits manager would reimburse itself.” 
<a href="https://dashboard.ncleg.gov/api/Services/BillSummary/2023/H246-SMBC-60(e1)-v-2">House Bill 246</a> would also prohibit PBMs “from assessing certain fees and restricting the right of pharmacies to dispense specialty drugs.”
HB 246 has been stuck in committee in the state Senate for over a year, and while Sasser is unsure if the bill will ever be brought to the floor for a vote, he said that he is confident that it would easily pass and be signed by the governor. 
“Basically where we’re at today in North Carolina is the Senate pro tem [Republican state Sen. Phil Berger] has refused to let the bill move. It’s just that simple,” Sasser said. “And all I’ll say is Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina is very powerful.” 
When asked about HB 246’s holdup in the state Senate, Randy Brechbiel — a spokesman for Berger — told The Daily Wire in an email, “Few states have successfully passed legislation implementing the provisions included in House Bill 246, and no states have knowledge of the long-term impacts.&#8221; 
&#8220;Required payments to pharmacies, such as significantly increased dispensing fees, would result in added costs being passed onto consumers and insurance premiums,&#8221; the spokesman added. &#8220;That, and the multiple complexities of the issue, has made finding a workable compromise difficult, but any legislative changes need to be weighed carefully given the impact would touch patients, employers, pharmacies, manufacturers, distributors, and PBMs.”

Pharmacy prescriptions

A Little-Known Health Care Middleman Is Becoming More Powerful. Independent Pharmacies Say That Spells Disaster For Patients.

North Carolina

About a year ago, I <a href="https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1661477689767919617?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">covered</a> the very sudden rise of euthanasia in Canada. As of 2022, the most recent year we have <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-system-services/annual-report-medical-assistance-dying-2022.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> available, euthanasia is now the fifth-leading cause of death in Canada, accounting for one out of every 25 fatalities. That&#8217;s ahead of common conditions like liver disease, influenza, diabetes, and Alzheimer&#8217;s.
The number of so-called &#8220;assisted deaths&#8221; rose by more than 30% year-over-year, although precise metrics are getting hard to track. That&#8217;s because, going forward, Canada <a href="https://x.com/StatCan_eng/status/1729539259076334034?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">says</a> euthanasia deaths won&#8217;t be recorded as deaths caused by euthanasia. Instead, whatever reason the patient provides for seeking euthanasia will be recorded as the cause of death. So if you have a doctor kill you because you have arthritis, in Canada, that&#8217;s now classified as a death due to arthritis.
This coverup, like everything that has ever been attempted by the Canadian government, has failed miserably. Euthanasia is such an obviously booming industry that funeral homes have started <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/canadian-death-cult#:~:text=In%202022%2C%204.1%20percent%20of,Parliament%20first%20introduced%20MAID%20legislation." target="_blank" rel="noopener">offering</a> so-called &#8220;turn-key&#8221; <a href="https://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/f514affe-77c3-4052-ba88-e327c9ec6dc5%7C_0.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bundles</a>, in which people can kill themselves and then have a burial, all for one low price. There&#8217;s no need to have a terminal illness, either. Some Canadians are killing themselves because they <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12248669/Euthanasia-tightens-grip-West-Shocking-rise-doctor-assisted-suicides.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">say</a> it&#8217;s easier than getting disability benefits. The Canadian state-owned media loves this, of course. They <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/medically-assisted-death-could-save-millions-1.3947481" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claim</a> that euthanasia can save &#8220;millions&#8221; in health care costs.
This isn&#8217;t just happening in Canada. All over the western world, euthanasia is now more common than it&#8217;s ever been. The number of British citizens who signed up for &#8220;Dignitas,&#8221; a Swiss nonprofit that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47158287" target="_blank" rel="noopener">performs</a> euthanasia, increased by nearly 25% in 2023. In Switzerland, assisted deaths <a href="https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/life-aging/swiss-assisted-suicides-rose-11-in-2023/49198616" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jumped</a> by 11% last year. Meanwhile in Belgium, assisted suicide <a href="https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2024/02/27/euthanasia-cases-increase-by-15-per-cent-in-belgium-in-2023/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increased</a> by more than 15%. Overall in Europe and Canada, euthanasia rates have increased by a quarter in just about 12 months.
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Over in South Australia, &#8220;medical assistance in dying&#8221; was <a href="https://www.gogentleaustralia.org.au/south_australia_marks_one_year_of_voluntary_assisted_dying#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20know%20from%20other%20states,died%2C%20110%20from%20VAD%20administration." target="_blank" rel="noopener">legalized</a> a year ago, and the numbers of death permits they&#8217;re issuing are <a href="https://www.gogentleaustralia.org.au/latest_figures_from_south_australia_show_steady_increase_in_vad_permits" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increasing</a> at a rate of around 20% per quarter. And those numbers are going to continue to rise, in part because the public broadcaster in Australia is running segments like this promoting euthanasia. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 Palliative Care" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4Kc34jPG1xk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Make a difference in someone&#8217;s life today, by killing them. Give them a little something &#8220;extra.&#8221; That&#8217;s the pitch in Australia, and it&#8217;s working.
As you&#8217;d expect, as euthanasia becomes more and more common all over the world, we&#8217;re hearing more disturbing stories.
For example, there was the Canadian woman who was <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10118619/bc-cancer-agency-wait-times-surgery-united-states/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">diagnosed</a> with cancer, only to be told by her doctors that she should consider euthanasia. She refused and fled to the United States, where she paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to receive treatment. Those are the kind of stories that make you realize there are a lot of very sick people in countries like Canada who don&#8217;t have a lot of money lying around. And they&#8217;re probably killing themselves. 
It&#8217;s hard to imagine this trend getting any more bleak but somehow, it does.
There&#8217;s an incredible new <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/im-28-and-im-scheduled-to-die?r=8ivfe&amp;utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;triedRedirect=true">story</a> in the Free Press about a 28-year-old woman in The Netherlands named Zoraya ter Beek. She plans to have a medical professional kill her sometime in May. That&#8217;s not because she has any kind of terminal illness. Instead, she&#8217;s been diagnosed with depression, autism, and borderline personality disorder. And on that basis, even though she lives in a nice house, with her boyfriend and her cats, she wants to die.
This woman appears to mean what she&#8217;s saying. She&#8217;s been highly visible in the Dutch press for many years, going as far back as 2017. And every time she&#8217;s appeared since then, she&#8217;s been promoting the idea of euthanasia or dying in some way. 
For example, in 2017, a Dutch website profiled Zoraya, <a href="https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/editienl/laatste-videos-editienl/video/50121/zoraya-22-draagt-niet-reanimerenpenning-respecteer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writing</a>: 
<blockquote>Zoraya is 22 and does not want to be resuscitated if something happens to her. And of course she gets comments about that. More and more people are deciding to wear a do-not-resuscitate badge.</blockquote>
That same year, another Dutch outlet wrote an <a href="https://www.pzc.nl/bizar/zonder-juiste-medicijnen-wil-zoraya-22-uit-oldenzaal-niet-verder-leven~a6575e9e/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2F" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> about how Zoraya was planning her funeral.
Additionally, Zoraya has provided the Free Press with a photograph of the coffin she plans to use, including a picture of herself in the coffin. She also posted extensively about her plans on social media.
Confronted with all of this, Zoraya&#8217;s psychiatrists didn&#8217;t suggest any alternative. Instead, they told her she was doomed: 
<blockquote>[Zoraya] recalled her psychiatrist telling her that they had tried everything, that &#8216;there’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never gonna get any better.&#8217;</blockquote>
It&#8217;s hard to sum up the agenda of the pharmaceutical companies and the medical industry any better than that one line. &#8220;There&#8217;s nothing more we can do for you. It&#8217;s never gonna get any better.&#8221; I&#8217;m sure that&#8217;s a paraphrase, but it&#8217;s horrifying. This is a woman who&#8217;s not even 30-years-old and who has no physical issues whatsoever. Every single problem she has is in her head — and very vaguely defined. 
A term like “borderline personality disorder” is one we’re accustomed to hearing — and that many people have been diagnosed with — but very rarely does anyone stop to ask any fundamental questions about it. Questions like: How exactly can you diagnose a “personality” as “disordered.” What is a properly ordered personality? What personality is this woman supposed to have? Well, never mind. Whatever these disorders are, her doctors have prescribed suicide to cure them.
Because this is what happens now if the antidepressant drugs don’t work. Now they have another drug to permanently &#8220;fix&#8221; the problem. And conveniently, the same companies selling the antidepressants are also making the drugs that help kill people who realize the antidepressants don&#8217;t work too well. A company called Valeant Pharmaceuticals, now known as Bausch Health, made the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2019/12/11/my-terminally-ill-mother-wanted-end-her-own-life-what-would-it-take-fulfill-her-last-wish/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">most commonly</a> used drug in physician-assisted suicides, called Seconal. As it happens, that same company also makes Wellbutrin, the 18th-most prescribed medicine in the United States, with millions of prescriptions. When it came out, it was billed as a second-line, heavy-hitting antidepressant that&#8217;s supposed to work where first-line SSRIs fail. But in the event the second-line antidepressant fails, now we know what the third line is. They&#8217;ll just kill you.
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That should disturb most people. But it doesn&#8217;t — at least, not everywhere. One of the most revealing aspects of this Free Press article has been the reaction to it. In The Netherlands, there was outrage — not at the medical industry, but at the Free Press for covering the story. Zoraya shut down her social media accounts, claiming the Free Press article misrepresented her, without explaining how. A lot of her supporters in The Netherlands were also furious with the piece, saying it was a distorted view of what they call &#8220;medical assistance in dying.&#8221;
But in America, the reaction was different. Instead of writing puff pieces about Zoraya&#8217;s decision, many mainstream outlets presented it accurately — as a horrifying crime against humanity, and a betrayal of the most basic principle of medicine. 
Here&#8217;s how the author of The Free Press piece, Rupa Subramanya, <a href="https://x.com/rupasubramanya/status/1774949448956649542?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">put it on X</a>: 
<blockquote>I&#8217;ve been struck by the reactions so far, some of which I anticipated. North Americans generally tend to be horrified at the Dutch acceptance of the right to die even for someone who is not terminally ill or their acceptance that there should be a more humane to commit suicide even when euthanasia is legal. The Dutch I spoke to find North Americans very conservative and religious when it comes to life and death.
The Netherlands is a post-religious society, and the comments from there are 180 degrees from what I&#8217;m getting from people in North America. We&#8217;re living in two different epistemic worlds at the same point in time, in cultures that descend from fundamentally the same Western roots coming from the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Protestant Reformation. There is overwhelming support for euthanasia, assisted dying and a more humane way to commit suicide in The Netherlands than anywhere else in the Western world.</blockquote>
What this tells us is that the contagion that has now completely overtaken Europe, and in particular countries like The Netherlands, may be reversible in this country. It may not have completely taken hold here. And there are other signs of that, as well.
For example, late last year, the American Medical Association&#8217;s house of delegates <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/cna/american-medical-association-retains-opposition-to-assisted-suicide" target="_blank" rel="noopener">considered</a> a resolution that would have officially endorsed the practice of euthanasia. Given the extent of the barbaric medical practices the AMA endorses already, it seemed likely that this resolution would pass. But as the National Catholic Register <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/cna/american-medical-association-retains-opposition-to-assisted-suicide" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a>:
<blockquote>The House of Delegates of the American Medical Association &#8230; rebuffed an effort to change the organization’s current stance in opposition to physician-assisted suicide, a development that drew praise from members of the Catholic Medical Association, which advocated against the change.</blockquote>
This is a victory, obviously. But the fact this resolution was even proposed, and seriously considered, tells us we&#8217;re not very far removed from The Netherlands. It suggests that, unless the underlying causes of this trend are resolved, it will overtake this country as well. And the underlying causes — the reason young people are killing themselves — is that hope and a sense of purpose are becoming rare in modern society. That&#8217;s true both here and in Europe.
Now that euthanasia offers a seemingly easy and &#8220;painless&#8221; way out, more and more people, at younger and younger ages, will take advantage of it. They&#8217;ll be put on antidepressants that don&#8217;t work, and then suicide drugs after that. Somehow, the drug companies will suggest that, even though they&#8217;ve sold SSRIs that accomplish nothing, you should still trust them when they say that their euthanasia drug is the solution.
This is a pitch that only works when people have been lied to for years, and become profoundly confused about this basic fact: Life is not easy. Nobody is happy all the time. But we are alive for a reason. If we feel like life is meaningless, it’s not because life has no meaning, it’s just that we struggle to see it. The solution is to help those people see the meaning in life.
Pharma companies like Bausch Health are not providing that solution. They aren’t trying to help people in their despair. They’re only trying to profit off of it.

Surgeon, physician performs surgical operations, anesthetist or anesthesiologist holding patient’s hand ffor checking state of mand or support in ER room, Medical healthcare concept

The Euthanasia Business Is Booming As Western Civilization Gives Up On Itself

Assisted Suicide

Canada

Death

Euthanasia

Readers Pass

Social Issues

The Netherlands

Big Pharma is getting more aggressive with its tactics to gain control. Why? Because it’s threatened by the increasing number of people who are becoming more aware of their ploys. Not everyone trusts their doctors quite like they did before. COVID led to the collapse of the medical mirage, so people have questions. And people want answers. We are prodding the narrative: What exactly are its intentions with our children? What is going on with the number of vaccines? What is going on with pharmaceutical care? Big Pharma is answering by passing legislation as to whether you should — or should not — have access to your children’s medical records, decisions, and medicines. <a href="https://www.carolinacarerx.org/#:~:text=CarolinaCARE%20is%20the%20home%2Ddelivery,Learn%20about%20CarolinaCARE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CarolinaCARE</a> is the first of what I’m sure will be many instances to come of medical professionals deeming children as adults so parents lose access to their children’s medical records.
CarolinaCARE is a home-delivery pharmacy service owned by Atrium Health and based out of North Carolina. But CarolinaCARE serves multiple states that have different laws pertaining to access to health information, which includes prescriptions, so <a href="https://www.carolinacarerx.org/Documents/CarolinaCARE_Age_of_Majority_FAQs.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">they have sent out a notice</a> to their clients because they are making a change “to remain compliant with laws in all the states CarolinaCARE services to ensure continued privacy of your child’s prescription records.” 
Privacy from whom? From you, the parent. 
Starting November 1, children who are 12- to 17-years-old must create new accounts on their website so they have access to their prescriptions and medications because their parents will no longer have access. That’s correct: Parents cannot view or manage their children’s prescriptions. Written in black and white on their notice read the following words: “The laws are intended to allow minors to receive prescription medication for sensitive issues, without worrying about how their parents may react.” If you have questions, you are encouraged to read their FAQs.
<div id="attachment_646739" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-646739" class="wp-image-646739 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/Carolina-Care-text.png" alt="" width="512" height="388" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/Carolina-Care-text.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/Carolina-Care-text-300x227.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" />Screenshot: CarolinaCARE</div>
I have a lot of questions, the first being, how is that even plausible? How is it legal to essentially tell parents they are no longer parents? By making this change, CarolinaCARE is basically saying a 12-year-old is able to make a decision in terms of what prescriptions they are putting in their body. How does that happen? Children cannot do certain things until they are 18-years-old, when they become adults. So it completely defies logic that they would be able to make decisions pertaining to what prescription they should be on — prescriptions that have real-world implications. Of course, a parent should be in the room with a doctor when deciding whether or not their children should be on medication because parents are thinking about their child’s future. Adults can consider the possible impact and effects of prescriptions, whereas a child does not yet have that capability. That’s why they are children and why children have parents. Why would they do this?
My best guess is that because many adults are recognizing they should have never been put on drugs as a child, the move is going to be to take the medical decision-making power away from those adults. There has been public debate among adults about having been put on medications as a child, whether it be medications like Adderall or medications to transition them. More and more adults are openly speaking out against drugs, saying they have ruined their lives. Big Pharma knows that once people become adults, they can see that more clearly — because they aren’t 12.
<h4><a href="https://get.dailywire.com/candace/convicting-a-murderer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: Candace Owens&#8217; &#8220;Convicting A Murderer&#8221;</a></h4>
<div id="attachment_646743" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-646743" class="size-full wp-image-646743" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/CAM-advert.png" alt="" width="512" height="288" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/CAM-advert.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/CAM-advert-300x169.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" />DailyWire+</div>
Yet CarolinaCARE is essentially signaling to 12-year-olds that they are now adults and can make adult decisions. So if a child professes they feel as though they are in the wrong body, a doctor could give that child prescription drugs to transition — drugs that will render that child infertile in their adult years. These are the same drugs given to pedophiles to castrate them. But children are not going to know that because they exist and think in the moment. They don’t consider what their adult life might be like; they don’t even consider what the next day will be like. They will fall prey to believing they can feel safer from their parents in making these decisions alone. 
To make matters worse (if that’s even possible), the state is getting involved because they want to further this. If this is successful and they are allowed to treat 12-year-olds as though they are adults and put them on medications that can potentially harm them in the future, they are inevitably going to be inundated with massive lawsuits against CarolinaCARE in the years to come. And I hope that there are massive lawsuits because this is absolutely despicable.
If a child turns 12 after November 1, this change will automatically take place. While this is hard news to digest, it’s news you need to be aware of, especially if you are a parent. Because while CarolinaCARE may only be in certain states now, it will be coming to a state near you.
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06_14_2021_CandaceOwens_ep14_BTS_00039

Big Pharma’s Shocking Move To Medicate Kids Without Parental Consent

Candace Owens

Children

Parents rights

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/health-care" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rite Aid</a> reportedly plans to close hundreds of stores as it mulls how to get ahead of billions of dollars in debt and a slew of opioid-related lawsuits.
The pharmacy retail giant is looking at shuttering about 400 to 500 of its more than 2,100 stores in a bankruptcy process, The Wall Street Journal <a class="color-link" title="https://www.wsj.com/articles/rite-aid-planning-to-shut-down-hundreds-of-stores-in-bankruptcy-de7967db" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/rite-aid-planning-to-shut-down-hundreds-of-stores-in-bankruptcy-de7967db" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-ga-track="ExternalLink:https://www.wsj.com/articles/rite-aid-planning-to-shut-down-hundreds-of-stores-in-bankruptcy-de7967db" aria-label="Wall Street Journal">reported</a>. Bondholders <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2023/09/27/drugstore-downsizing-cvs-walgreens-and-rite-aid-to-close-nearly-1500-stores/?sh=4ee32de6e560" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> want to close even more stores.
Rite Aid has <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/09/22/rite-aid-proposes-closing-about-a-quarter-of-its-stores-in-bankruptcy-report-says/?sh=4ea53cfe5796" target="_blank" rel="noopener">proposed</a> either selling the stores or handing them over to creditors, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the company&#8217;s bankruptcy negotiations.
The company is dealing with more than $3.3 billion in debt and more than a thousand federal lawsuits accusing Rite Aid of knowingly filling illegal opioid prescriptions.
One of those lawsuits <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-files-complaint-alleging-rite-aid-dispensed-controlled-substances-violation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">is from</a> the Justice Department, which alleges Rite Aid filled hundreds of thousands of illegal prescriptions, including those with &#8220;obvious red flags,&#8221; and intentionally deleted internal notes about suspicious prescribers.
“These practices opened the floodgates for millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Rite Aid’s stores,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-files-complaint-alleging-rite-aid-dispensed-controlled-substances-violation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in March when the suit was filed.
Rite Aid has denied the allegations.
“Given the conversations remain ongoing, no decisions have been made at this time and we are focused on reaching an agreement with our financial stakeholders that will make Rite Aid stronger,” a Rite Aid spokesperson said, Forbes <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/09/22/rite-aid-proposes-closing-about-a-quarter-of-its-stores-in-bankruptcy-report-says/?sh=4ea53cfe5796" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Rite Aid has been plagued by stores failing to generate profits in recent years and has struggled to compete with bigger chains like CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart&#8217;s pharmacies.
Last year, Rite Aid <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2022/04/14/rite-aid-expects-more-closures-of-unprofitable-stores/?sh=389cded16585" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> it would close 145 “unprofitable stores” as part of a plan to “significantly reduce costs.”
CVS and Walgreens, which operate around 9,000 stores each, do not have the same slate of problems as Rite Aid, but both pharmacy chains are also working on closing locations.
CVS <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/investing/cvs-store-closures/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in 2021 that it would close 900 stores by 2024. The closures <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/18/cvs-store-closures-to-shut-about-300-stores-a-year-over-next-three-years.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">were set</a> to start in the spring of last year at a rate of about 300 per year.
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Walgreens <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/investing/walgreens-150-store-closings/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in June that it plans to close 150 locations across the country and even more abroad to cut costs.
Rising retail theft is another factor for pharmacies. Theft cost the retail sector $112.1 billion last year, 19% higher than in 2021, <a href="https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/retail-crime-accounted-over-112-billion-industry-losses-2022-according" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to a National Retail Federation report.
Shoplifting has become rampant in some cities <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/retail/2023/09/27/retail-theft-lost-inventory-statistics-2022/70975031007/#" target="_blank" rel="noopener">like</a> Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, and pharmacies have been a common target since the riots of 2020.
Some drug stores <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2023/09/27/drugstore-downsizing-cvs-walgreens-and-rite-aid-to-close-nearly-1500-stores/?sh=4ee32de6e560" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resorted</a> to putting products in transparent locked cases. However, this tactic often results in a sales drop of 15% to 25%, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurendebter/2022/04/02/stores-locking-things-up-rising-theft/?sh=67d4042511ca" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the head of a company that sold security devices to Walgreens.
The security devices are an inconvenience since they require customers to flag down an employee and rely on them to unlock the product. They also indicate to customers that the store might not be safe.
Other factors are disrupting the chain pharmacy business model as well, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2023/09/27/drugstore-downsizing-cvs-walgreens-and-rite-aid-to-close-nearly-1500-stores/?sh=4ee32de6e560" target="_blank" rel="noopener">including</a> a rise in independent pharmacies, pharmacies in grocery stores, and online prescription filling.

In this photo illustration the stock trading graph of Rite

Rite Aid To Shutter Hundreds Of Stores In Bankruptcy: Report

Business

Opioid Crisis