Healthcare Regulated by the Drug Industry

The Medicines and Health Regulation Agency (MHRA) is conflicted in at least being fully funded by the drug industry, since 1989 when the government under Margaret Thatcher removed drug regulation from the Department of Health. This complete transfer of funding has empowered the drug industries influence over our drug regulation, and is a subject that politicians and media have had zero interest in addressing or bringing up despite being a massive problem affecting a large number of real people, and a fact that the general public knows little about.

In as recently as February 2022, Christopher Cole a Food and Drug Administration Executive Officer revealed to a journalist filming undercover at Project Veritas that to drug companies that pay the agency more money it “increases the chances of approval”. This is just as an alarming revelation to us here in the UK, as the MHRA generally follows the larger USA’s drug regulation agency (the FDA’s) lead. Christopher Cole continued to spill the beans that “the dirty stuff is never really publicized”.

The general public may also be stunned to know that the only existing public database listing conflicts of interest in healthcare, is a project created largely by the drug industry itself (Disclosure UK). Maybe the UK governments lack of action in this regard led the drug industry to become so embarrased it had to come up with something itself. This database as you may be interested to know however only contains voluntary disclosures and self-wipes those records after 3 years!

The main mental health organisation operating in parliament called ‘The All Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health‘ is facilitated by a charity called Rethink Mental Illness that takes money from drug companies, and the notorious Royal College of Psychiatrists, who were allegedly caught deleting studies indicating long-term medication injury from their website. Although the mental health industry is one of the largest growing behemoths in healthcare with exemplary PR and an evergrowing captive consumer-base of children, freedom of information requests (made by me) exposed that an average of 0 adverse medication harms are reported by psychologists and a measly shrinking handful are reported by psychiatrists.

It would be to some suprise to me if these negligent facts are unknown to our elected officials running down accountable health regulation.