How Big Pharma Turned FDA Approval Into a Rubber Stamp
The Food and Drug Administration, once a powerful regulatory agency, has been compromised by its cozy relationship with Big Pharma. Despite feigned concern for public health, the Trump administration is only worsening the agency’s decline.
The pharmaceutical industry uses its vast resources to influence all stakeholders in the drug-approval process, from patients to doctors all the way up to its chief regulator, the FDA. The result is less safe and less effective medications. (George Frey / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Alberto Espay was not prepared for how his world would be upended when he published a study on the number of people who have died while taking new, high-profile Alzheimer’s drugs.
Last October, the neurology professor and his colleagues posted the results of their study online, writing that patients taking Aduhelm and Leqembi were two to nearly three times as likely to die as those treated in the clinical trials. The reaction was immediate and furious: Colleagues accused Espay of using “alarmist” language and having a financial stake in maligning the drugs. The University of Cincinnati, where Espay works, told him not to talk to the press without consulting the university’s communications department. Then, law enforcement warned him of a credible death threat against him and his family.
Amid the controversy, the publisher withdrew the article.
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