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You've heard it before, how the pharmaceutical industry has a giant "revolving
door" through which corporations and government agencies frequently exchange key
employees. That reality was driven home in a huge way today when news broke that Dr. Julie
Gerberding, who headed the CDC from 2002 through 2009, landed a top job with Merck, one of
the largest drug companies in the world. Her job there? She's the new president of the
vaccine division.
How convenient. That means the former head of the CDC was very likely cultivating a
relationship with Merck all these
years, and now comes the big payoff: Heading up a $5 billion division that sells cervical cancer vaccines (like
Gardasil), chickenpox vaccines and
of course H1N1 swine flu
vaccines, too.
So what's the problem with all this? The problem is that private industry and
government health offices such as the
CDC or FDA should never be so cozy. When they are, it creates an environment of
collusion between Big
Government and Big Pharma. We've already seen this with the government-led push for
swine flu vaccines that are
manufactured (and sold) by drug
companies like Merck.
You might even say that the CDC already functions as the marketing division of the pharmaceutical industry.
It was the CDC that pushed so hard for swine
flu vaccines, even amid the obvious realization that swine flu was no more dangerous
than seasonal flu. To this day, the CDC still hasn't bothered to recommend vitamin D for
the prevention of either seasonal flu or swine flu. It remains heavily invested in the
lucrative vaccine approach -- an approach that just happens to financially benefit the
very corporations that are
hiring ex-CDC employees like Dr.
Gerberding.
How to triple your salary by selling out to industry
Getting a job offer from Big
Pharma, by the way, is one of the most-desired career paths for many CDC employees
(and FDA workers, for that matter). It's easy to accomplish it, too: Just operate in your
government position as if you were a Big Pharma lackey. If you produce enough good business for the drug industry, sooner
or later they'll offer you a lucrative position that doubles or triples your government
salary (or even better).
Now, I don't want to lump all CDC employees in this same pathetic group, because there are
indeed a great many bright, honest scientists working at the CDC who do excellent work
tracking pandemics and trying to save lives. They are overshadowed, however, by those
ambitious profit seekers who see their CDC job as merely a stepping stone for a far
better-paying job at a major drug companies. And by any measure, Dr. Gerberding just
cashed in big.
Her actual salary at Merck hasn't been publicly released yet, but given that she's heading
up a $5 billion vaccine industry, it's probably not chump change. I'd bet she's now making
at least ten times the salary of the President of the United States (and probably a lot
more). (Natural
News,12.22.2009, Mike Adams, the Health Ranger) http://www.naturalnews.com/027789_Dr_Julie_Gerberding_Merck.html
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