{"id":852046,"date":"2021-10-06T09:14:35","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T13:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=852046"},"modified":"2021-10-06T09:14:39","modified_gmt":"2021-10-06T13:14:39","slug":"big-pharma-is-the-largest-drug-cartel-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/big-pharma-is-the-largest-drug-cartel-on-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Pharma Is The Largest Drug Cartel On Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbig-pharma-is-the-largest-drug-cartel-on-earth%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=852046&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/FDA-Recovered_2Artboard-1-copy-14.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span>Felix Gallardo is a college graduate, turned federal police agent, turned drug-trafficking Lord of the infamous Guadalajara cartel.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In the 1970s Gallardo began growing and selling billions of dollars worth of drugs each year. Everyone was on his payroll. Police officers, governors, judicial officers. Can you imagine that? The Mexican government, their law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the media \u2014 all working to assist and protect a criminal.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Gallardo was a part of the political class. So much so that they relied on him during campaign season. In 1988, during the middle of an election, while votes were being tallied, the tallying system suddenly crashed. Votes stopped being calculated. And when it came back online, the candidate that the cartel wanted to win \u2014 who was previously trailing \u2014 suddenly won. That\u2019s true power \u2014 rigging an election to elect a desired politician and getting away with it.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But Felix made a mistake. He sent crooked police officials to kidnap and murder an American DEA agent who was snooping around in his business. Gallardo\u2019s men injected their victim with adrenaline to keep him awake throughout his torture and interrogation, before drilling a hole into his brain. It was a brutal, horribly graphic crime. One which triggered the largest DEA homicide investigation ever.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It took years, but Felix was eventually arrested in 1989 and today, is still rotting in an 8\u00d714 foot cell.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>There\u2019s something very American Dream about Felix Gallardo \u2014 especially the part about paying the right people, buying protection from the political class and immunity from the media. Yeah, there\u2019s nothing more American than that.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Which brings me to the FDA.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The Food and Drug Administration is the oldest comprehensive consumer protection agency in the federal government, and its regulatory role began because there was a chemist who was concerned about chemical preservatives in food.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>What started as a relatively small regulatory agency soon ballooned in size and scope after FDR signed into law that all cosmetics and medical devices in America needed to be approved by the federal government.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&nbsp;Flash forward to 2017, when CNN published a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2017\/05\/09\/health\/fda-approval-drug-events-study\/index.html\"><span>piece<\/span><\/a><span> entitled \u201cNearly a third of FDA-approved drugs had problems, study finds.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>A third? That doesn\u2019t surprise me at all and it shouldn\u2019t surprise you either \u2014 if you\u2019ve been paying attention.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For example \u2014 did you know that the FDA has a 5.9 billion dollar budget, $2.7 billion of which is paid for by industry fees? That\u2019s right, 45% of their budget comes from the manufacturers of the products and drugs they approve. That\u2019s what \u201cIndustry fees\u201d are.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>You\u2019re probably wondering \u2014 how is that legal? How is that not a conflict of interest? Well, that power was given to them during a different global pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>During the HIV epidemic, the FDA gained authorization to collect fees from companies that produce drugs and products for humans, because apparently, they realized there was a need to approve drugs faster.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But still, \u201ctrust the experts!\u201d they say. Always. Forever. No matter what, trust the experts. They\u2019ve never gotten it wrong.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Except, apparently, a lot.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It was the experts who once upon an American horror story, allowed for the advertisement of DDT\u2014a harmful insecticide, to pregnant women. It was later banned in 1972.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The experts once prescribed Heroin \u2014 actual heroin\u2014 as a cough suppressant. At the time, all the medical literature indicated it was going to be promising.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It was the experts who said Asbestos was a miracle mineral until they realized it\u2019s poison.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But Trust the experts, even though, yes, sometimes they accept money and lie to the American public. Like when big tobacco paid billions to the right people in exchange for the promotion of their deadly products. Physicians, doctors, medical journals \u2014 they all promoted cigarettes. In 1963, the FDA stated that tobacco did not meet their hazardous criteria.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&nbsp;But so what? They got it wrong. That was then, this is now, right? Medicine has improved, after all. Just look at the country now thanks to the blessing of big pharma and vaccines.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>America, the most medicated country in the world.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>And yet, across OECD Countries \u2014 that\u2019s countries with similar GDPs to ours \u2014 we rank 28th out of 36 in life expectancy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>We rank last in terms of the prevalence of obesity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But who cares? Trust the science. Trust the FDA. Suspend rational, independent thinking and do as they say.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Trust the FDA, which in 2006 approved silicone gel-filled breast implants. In the years that followed, women have been reporting illness \u2014 hair loss, pain, memory loss, depression, neurological disease. This is now referred to colloquially as breast implant illness \u2014 I refer to it as common sense \u2014 but the FDA and the medical industry hardly acknowledge the illness.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>They do, however, admit that removing the implants can relieve the symptoms. They also acknowledge that breast implants have been associated with a type of Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma \u2014 cancer of the immune system \u2014 but they haven\u2019t yet revoked their approval because\u2026 why would they? Breast implants are a billion-dollar industry and, well, industry fees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Which explains the current opioid crisis \u2014 an FDA-approved epidemic. For 25 years, opioid manufacturers disseminated false claims regarding the risks and benefits of their products but the FDA didn\u2019t care. They approved it anyway. They allowed opioids to be marketed as safe and ignored every medical journal that demonstrated otherwise.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Oops.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Pop quiz: which company holds the record for paying the second-largest criminal fine in U.S History? Pfizer! In 2009, they paid out $2.3 billion in a criminal and civil liability suit \u2014 the largest healthcare fraud settlement in history at the time \u2014 for the marketing of a drug called BEXTRA, which was withdrawn from the market in 2005 for safety concerns, and other drugs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Nobody went to prison of course, because why would they?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The largest operative drug cartel that has ever existed in the history of the world is Big Pharma.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>They\u2019ve killed millions. But they always pay the right people, and that\u2019s what matters most.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Felix Gallardo forgot to pay the right people. If he had, maybe he would have only been made to pay a fine. And then he could have gone on to kill many more people. If he had just opened up his pocketbook, he might have even been allowed to fast track the approval of some of his drugs \u2014 for emergency reasons only of course.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Maybe Felix could have even been completely removed from any and all liability pertaining to the side effects of his drugs?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>And it\u2019s going to sound fantastical but \u2014 for the right price \u2014 he might have even convinced politicians to issue mandates to force the entire population to consume his drugs against their free will.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But what do I know? I\u2019m not a medical \u201cexpert\u201d like the rest of them.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Which is maybe why you should listen.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span>The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i><span>member<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Felix Gallardo is a college graduate, turned federal police agent, turned drug-trafficking Lord of the infamous Guadalajara cartel.\u00a0In the 1970s Gallardo began growing and selling billions of dollars worth of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1896300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-852046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1896300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}