Tag: appointee
Why Trump's Latest FDA Appointee May Imperil Agency's Vital Work

Why Trump's Latest FDA Appointee May Imperil Agency's Vital Work

By appointing Dr. Vinay Prasad to run the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, the Trump regime has installed another prominent opponent of Covid-era public health policies to a key position at the Food and Drug Administration.

CBER is responsible for ensuring the safety and efficacy of vaccines, biologic drugs, gene therapies and the blood supply. When FDA Commissioner Martin Makary announced Prasad’s appointment yesterday, he noted the 42-year-old oncologist-epidemiologist has published hundreds of articles in the medical literature. I read their titles this morning. Only a few shed light on how he views the arenas he will soon oversee.

On the other hand, his recent writings on X (formerly Twitter), the substack Sensible Medicine, and his own substack Observations and Thoughts have plenty to say about school closures (“the great domestic policy failure of the last 25 years”); kids wearing masks outdoors (“whoever made the policy is an idiot”); and the annual Covid booster shot (“a public health disaster the likes of which we’ve never seen before”).

On the day after Trump’s election last November, he gave failing grades to the FDA and National Institutes of Health. He called for the elimination of 10,000 jobs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which he rated as an “abject failure.”

The rhetoric sounds more Trump/Muskian than even-handed or scientific. It is typical of his recent writings, which have taken on an increasingly strident tone since the pandemic. He has repeatedly attacked officials like Anthony Fauci and those at the CDC for ignoring alternative strategies and censoring proponents of herd immunity like Jay Bhattacharya, who now runs NIH.

One of Prasad’s recent posts called for large-scale, randomized clinical trials for the annual booster shots for COVID vaccines. That was in line with Makary’s order late last month that Novavax conduct a new clinical trial to test the annual update of its traditional Covid vaccine, which is the only alternative to the mRNA vaccines sold by Pfizer and Moderna. This new requirement may also be applied to the annual flu vaccines, which will cost the vaccine makers money (who cares?), but more importantly, will take much more time (something we should all care about).

“The FDA is a failure,” Prasad wrote last fall. “It rubber stamps too many useless products. It needs to either remove itself from the picture, or demand randomized trials measuring appropriate endpoints.”

Right turn

This rightward turn in Prasad’s public posture is a relatively recent phenomenon. He began his academic career by studying conflicts of interest in medicine (my own field when working at the Center for Science in the Public Interest). In 2017, he published a study in JAMA Internal Medicine that challenged the ridiculously high sum big drug companies claimed it cost to develop a new drug. (Full disclosure: I was invited to write the accompanying editorial, which was headlined “A Much-Needed Corrective on Drug Development Costs”).

To this day, the insidious role money plays in medicine remains central to how he views the relationship between the drug industry and government. “This is the core rot in American regulation. The revolving door politics. I find this behavior abhorrent, and it should be criminal,” he has written.

He has called for ending all conflicts of interest on FDA advisory committees and wants to set up a “new Phase IV safety detection system” for monitoring adverse vaccine events. “I think vaccine makers should face litigation, as drug makers do,” he has written. He’s also skeptical of using surrogate endpoints and accelerated approvals, which led the FDA to “rubber stamp dozens of drugs with no evidence they help Americans.”

So here we are again. A top Trump regime appointee is championing many positions held by left wing and progressive critics of weak government oversight. Indeed, Prasad has written he once considered himself a progressive Democrat. No wonder biotech stocks temporarily tanked on news of Prasad’s appointment to run CBER.

However, as I’ve said many times in writing about these appointments, let’s watch what they do, not what they say, past or present. Will the Makary/Prasad team slow or even stop vaccine approvals to please their boss, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services? Will Trump order the new team to back off from policies and decisions that tank the stock market (vaccines on their own could never do that; they’re too small a revenue item)?

If I were a gambling man, I’d bet the answer will be ‘yes’ to both those questions.

Reprinted with permission from Gooz News.

Grift Alert! Trump Appointees Pushed Scam Supplements

Grift Alert! Trump Appointees Pushed Scam Supplements

President-elect Donald Trump has sold Trump-branded vodka, steaks, bottled water, sneakers, neckties, and bibles. Now, he’s stacking his cabinet with folks who have hawked similarly chintzy and bizarre products.

On December 1, Trump said he would appoint MAGA loyalist Kash Patel to lead the FBI. Patel is a former federal prosecutor who worked in the Department of Defense during Trump’s first term.

In the last four years, Patel has tried to cash in on his proximity to Trump with Based Apparel, a clothing line that sells tees and sweatshirts emblazoned with pro-Trump words and images. The company’s logo is a skull with a Trump-esque haircut.

One item sold by Based Apparel is a red t-shirt printed with the words “Protect Our People” and a map of the United States. “Tired of seeing your hard earned money go overseas?” the product description asks, “Support your fellow Americans by purchasing a Protect Our People t-shirt.”

In a social media post, menswear critic Derek Guy pointed out that the t-shirts are sourced from Central America and Haiti.

Matthew Whittaker, Trump’s pick for Ambassador to NATO, also served in Trump’s first term as acting Attorney General. Prior to entering politics, Whittaker was involved in several business ventures, including a stint on the advisory board of World Patent Marketing, a Florida-based company that sought out investors for prospective products.

In 2014, Whittaker’s name appeared on promotional materials for a toilet that the company was marketing to “well-endowed men.”

“The average male genitalia is between 5’ and 6’,” the firm’s press release said, “However, this invention is designed for those of us who measure longer than that.”

World Patent Marketing also promoted cryptocurrency for time travelers. In 2022, the company was ordered to pay $26 million to the federal government for committing fraud.

Trump nominated Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a physician and Fox News personality, to be Surgeon General on Nov. 23. Nesheiwat’s sister is married to Florida Rep. Mike Waltz who Trump has tapped to be his national security adviser.

Nesheiwat’s name and image appears on a line of vitamins from the company B+C Boost. The company’s website features several quotes from Nesheiwat endorsing the products. Text at the bottom of the site warns, “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.”

A 30-day supply of B+C Boost’s supplements costs $26.99.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, another physician turned TV personality, is Trump’s pick to oversee Medicare and Medicaid. Like Nesheiwat, Oz has endorsed dubious health and medical products.

Usana Health Sciences, a Utah-based seller of supplements and skin care products, was a sponsor of Oz’s daytime talk show. Oz frequently touted the supposed benefits of the company’s products in segments that blurred the line between medical advice and advertisement. The company also made large donations to Oz’s charity.

More recently, Oz has been accused of violating the Federal Trade Commission’s influencer marketing rules. Oz has posted several videos on social media promoting herbal supplements sold by the online marketplace iHerb without disclosing that he is a stakeholder in the company. The FTC has not confirmed if the matter is being investigated.

If confirmed, Oz’s boss will likely be Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump has nominated to run the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy is a former lawyer and the founder of the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance (formerly Riverkeeper Alliance).

In 1999, Kennedy launched a line of bottled water that was intended to support Waterkeeper Alliance’s work. The New Republic reports that Kennedy’s bottled water included fluoride. He now says removing fluoride from drinking water is one of his top priorities.

Sebastian Gorka, a far-right commentator, served in Trump’s first term as a national security adviser and will return to that job in January. In 2019, Gorka appeared in a series of ads for a fish oil supplement that he claimed cured his chronic back pain.

Gorka’s name appeared on screen in the ads as “Dr. Sebastian Groka.” His doctorate is in political science, not medicine.

Since winning the 2024 presidential election, Trump has rolled out several new Trump-branded products, including cologne and acoustic guitars.

Reprinted with permission from American Journal News.

Perry Appointee Blocked DNA Evidence That Shows Convicted Man Has Been Held Wrongly For 25 Years

Michael Morton, a Texas man imprisoned for 25 years for murdering his wife, is vindicated by new DNA evidence showing a third-party intruder with a criminal record was at the scene of the crime, and the district attorney who prosecuted him, appointed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head the state’s Forensic Science Commission, also blocked testimony from Morton’s 3-year-old son that his mother’s killer was not his father, a court filing alleged Wednesday.

“These DNA results prove that Michael Morton was telling the truth all along,” said Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. “It’s clear from the new DNA testing and other suppressed, exculpatory documents that law enforcement never followed up on numerous leads pointing to a third-party intruder, which might have solved the crime. But even more troubling, District Attorney Bradley knew about this evidence, yet kept these documents hidden in the State’s file while he fought tooth and nail to bar DNA testing.”

Perry has already come under fire for executing Cameron Todd Willingham, an almost-certainly innocent man, and was forced to commute 30 executions by his own state’s Supreme Court. John Bradley no longer heads the state Forensic Science Commission but continues to serve as the Williamson County D.A., and the Innocence Project has pushed for a judge to remove him for bias.

“Michael had to spend the last six years fighting just to get access to DNA testing. Unfortunately, we now know that the District Attorney’s office knew all along that there was a good chance that the testing might point to another perpetrator in the case,” said John Raley, a Houston lawyer who has been pro bono co-counsel for Mr. Morton since 2003. “We’re hopeful the court will appoint a new prosecutor to investigate the matter because there is now a mountain of evidence pointing to Michael’s innocence, and the entire Morton family deserves to know the truth about what happened 25 years ago.”

Bradley, for his part, said the court filing was the stuff of personal vendetta.

“It seems to me that there’s a pretty big attempt here to retaliate or make personal attacks rather than litigate in the courtroom,” Bradley said. “If the investigation shows that he is in fact innocent, then that will be the result. I don’t think, on its face, that a DNA result that shows that a piece of evidence away from crime scene immediately proves innocence. It does raise some good issues that are worthy of investigation, and we will do that,” he said.

But the district attorney has a record that smacks of politics — and allegiance to Rick Perry in particular. The governor, after all, removed three members of the Forensic Science Commission in 2009 when it looked poised to vindicate Willingham, executed in 2004. He would appear to have no qualms about using his executive authority to avoid accountability and oversight, Scheck argued.

“There’s a whole history of this. The appointments. They were on the eve [in 2009] of having a hearing with Craig Beyler,” a forensic scientist independently retained to look at the plausibility of arson in the fire Willingham was executed for starting. “An independent panel of arson experts had said the arson evidence in the Willingham case was unreliable, and there should be an investigation or audit of any other cases relying on fire marshals. Finally, when the commission was about to hear from Dr. Beyler, Governor Perry removed the chair and the co-chair and another commissioner and appointed Bradley who immediately shut down the whole preceding. There’s been a storied history of Bradley’s efforts of preventing investigations from going forward.”

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