GekeVenn: PFIZER

♫ Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down... ♫

The Pfizer corporation was started as a chemical company in the 1800s by two cousins. Charles Pfizer was a chemist and Charles Erhart was a confectioner. Their first product was a drug for treating intestinal parasites developed by Pfizer. Cousin Erhart then added flavoring and shaped the drug into a candy cone.

But Pfizer's real growth came from its production of citric acid in the 1880s. Soft drink manufacturers like Coca-Cola and Pepsi used citric acid in their soda, which increased its demand. Critics of drug makers often cite our society's addiction to sugar for the many ills that drug companies purportedly try to "cure," and oddly enough, Pfizer's history seems to support a link of sorts between drug manufacturing and our demand for sweets.

Today, Pfizer, Inc. is one of the top five vaccine producers in the world. In looking at Pfizer's documented and undocumented connections to government, it's helpful to revisit some historical actions that took place on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry. Back in 1986, a bill was passed to protect drug makers from being sued for vaccine-related injuries.

The man who wrote the Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was Democrat Congressman Henry Waxman. He's been dubbed the father of the autism epidemic because of the passage of this law, which didn't just prevent suits against pharmaceutical companies, but actually allowed for expansion of childhood vaccine protocol. The former congressman now runs Waxman Strategies, a lobbying firm used by 340B Health, a group of hospitals that participate in the 340B drug discount program Waxman also helped write into law. (A recent New England Journal of Medicine study found that many hospitals weren't passing on the savings from the 340B discounts to their low-income patients.)

The 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was recently upheld by the Supreme Court, when it ruled against a Pennsylvania family trying to sue Pfizer for their daughter's seizure disorder. (The vaccine administered in this case had been produced by Lederle Laboratories, a predecessor to Wyeth which is now owned by Pfizer.)

Currently, Pfizer donates money to two groups lobbying for mandatory vaccinations: the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Immunization Action Coalition. According to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., writing in Collective Evolution, “In July 2017, the AAP published its state advocacy policy, which recommends elimination of all 'state laws permitting nonmedical exemptions to school entry immunization requirements.'”

And of course, lobbying is ongoing for federal government funding of the vaccines companies like Pfizer manufacture. In fact, Pfizer spent over $10 million in 2017 on lobbying the federal government, making it one of the top lobbying spenders.

One area of aggressive lobbying for Pfizer has been opposing the legalization of marijuana. The company joins the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America (CADCA) as a corporate partner (ie, funder) in its fight against pot primarily because its pain-killing properties compete with the pain-relieving medications Pfizer develops. And in June of 2017, the FDA granted Fast Track designation for Tanezumab, a Pfizer drug developed to treat chronic pain, especially relating to osteoarthritis.

Note that according to bloomberg.com, Pfizer director Caleb DesRosiers actually worked on implementation of the Medicare Modernization Act. The law's prescription drug coverage is clearly a benefit to companies like Pfizer.