Doctors and scientists who vote on Food and Drug Administration drug approvals have received paychecks from Big Pharma "for decades," Dr. Scott Atlas, former special adviser to former President Donald Trump, told Newsmax on Friday.
"This is not new; this has been going on for decades," Atlas said during an appearance on Newsmax's "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE."
"There's been data published. The journal of Science published a study from 2008 to 2014. There [were] 107 doctors and scientists voting on FDA drug approvals, and about a quarter of them had received over $100,000 and six of them over $1 million dollars from the same drug companies they voted on," he added.
A taxpayer watchdog report published in early August found that scientists with the National Institutes of Health received $325 million in third-party royalties from private companies, research outfits, nonprofits, and academia, including some that received federal contracts and grants.
Some of the payments came from companies affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, according to the data published by Open the Books.
Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci got at least 37 third-party payments from companies, while former NIH Director Francis Collins received at least 21 third-party payments.
"It's very obvious what's going on," Atlas told Newsmax.
"The royalty payments to NIH, Francis Collins, and Fauci that were uncovered were $200 million, pre-COVID, between 2010 and 2016, over 27,000 royalty payments.
"This is a huge problem. The conflict-of-interest issue is not necessarily avoidable, because we want smart people from private sector to help in government and we want good people in government to go into private sector. The problem is when they have a voice at the table, and they don't even disclose it.
"Scott Gottlieb, who was the FDA commissioner right before COVID, was in President Trump's ear. He's on the board of Pfizer. He was on TV, writing in The Wall Street Journal about the vaccine needs, booster needs. He's on the board of Pfizer and involved in trying to convince Twitter to block good science tweets about natural immunity.
"There's massive conflicts of interest and real corruption you're alluding to, and the public doesn't even know about it. We have laws, we have rules about conflicts of interest. But they're not sufficient, and these people need to be held accountable," he added.
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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