The pharma industry has gone crazy about what they feel the threat of RFK is. They’re worried about things like he’s talking about doing away with pharma advertising where you turn on the television and every eight minutes there’s a new drug ad. The industry themselves won’t do anything about it because they’re making so much money.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: So Farron, the pharma industry has gone crazy about what they feel the threat of RFK is, Robert Kennedy Jr. Full disclosure, he’s a personal friend of mine. I’ve known him for a long time. I support what he’s trying to do here. But I also know a lot about the other side. I know about the pharma industry. I know that they’re worried about things like he’s talking about doing away with pharma advertising where you turn on the television and every eight minutes there’s a new drug ad. The industry themselves won’t do anything about it because they’re making so much money. New Zealand’s the only place in the world that does that besides us. So he’s talking about that’s a stupid idea because you have people going to their doctor saying, I want this drug.
Farron Cousins: Instead of the doctor telling you what you need, you tell the doctor what you want, and yeah, that’s always been a problem ever since we started allowing that in the nineties. It’s flat out stupid is what it is. But the pharmaceutical lobby was so powerful that they convinced Congress to do this. Bill Clinton signed it and next thing you know, this is the way it is. And I agree, we got to get rid of that a hundred percent. So you do have this group, I forget their name, it’s not right in front of me, but it is a group that is funded by pharmaceutical industry. It’s funded by others in the medical industry, and it’s got a lot of big Democratic donors behind it. So that has to be talked about when you talk about the rest of the story. Sludge on Monday actually put out a big report on this group and all the Democrat donor money that’s flowing into it. But the question is, does that undermine the fact that you do have 15,000 doctors who say this isn’t the guy for the job. So obviously the money has an interest in it.
Mike Papantonio: Let me respond to that just a second. You can’t separate the doctor industry from the pharmaceutical industry. It’s almost impossible. These are the people, there’s doctor kickbacks, there’s doctor entertainment. They go on exotic vacations. They have such a tie to the pharmaceutical industry. That’s where they get all of their key opinion leaders. When we dealt with the opioid case, for example, doctors coming out of the woodwork, can we go around and make speeches for you and you pay us $500,000 a speech to say there’s no problems with Oxycontin? It’s a really good drug. It’s nothing addictive. You can’t separate the pharma industry from the doctor industry. After doing this for 40 years, being a lawyer that’s always suing pharma, I’m always on the other side of some doctor who somehow benefited from the pharma industry.
Farron Cousins: Well, let me use that example because you just teed this up perfectly. If we can’t trust the doctors because they’re tied to pharma, can we trust the lawyers because that pharmaceutical company’s got a corporate lawyer sitting over there? If we can’t divorce one group from the other, how do we divorce this group from that one? The plaintiff’s lawyers and the corporate lawyers because obviously the corporate lawyers will do anything for money, just like some of these doctors.
Mike Papantonio: Well, just like some plaintiff’s lawyers too.
Farron Cousins: And so, I don’t think we can lump all doctors in here. You’ve got a doctor that I know you trust.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. It’s not that I don’t trust doctors. It is they’re an extension of the pharmaceutical industry in so many ways that, and I guess I’ve just grown into that because I’ve seen it firsthand for so long.
Farron Cousins: Right. And let me point out to everybody here, you really have seen the worst of the worst and I don’t want to say that that warps your view of it, but it shapes it, obviously.
Mike Papantonio: No, there’s no question.
Farron Cousins: When all you do is get to see the horrible side.
Mike Papantonio: The sociopaths. Where I’m sitting, Farron, you and I have talked about, there’s very few depos that I’ve taken.
Farron Cousins: I’ve watched the videos of these depositions. They’re crazy.
Mike Papantonio: At the level that I take them. I take them of CEOs and few people in that area. They’re sociopaths. They’re absolutely sociopaths and they’re so desperate to destroy Bobby’s chances here. They’re horrified about what he’s talking about. Look, he wants guidelines on clinical data. He wants to know when can the public get your actual clinical data? He wants to know what are the relationships between you and the FDA? What is that revolving door like? I want to know. He wants to look at that. He wants to talk about those things. These are issues that scare the hell out of the pharma industry.
Farron Cousins: And those are things that we do need. Unfortunately, that is a tiny piece of the pie of what Kennedy has said. Honestly, those are things that he’s not even really saying publicly. Let’s be honest about that. These last few years, it has been all about these vaccines are dangerous. We’ve got problems. They’re causing these things that they’re not causing. And so that is what the public sees and that is what these doctors are saying. Listen, they even mentioned in the letter, he is a lawyer by trade. Now that doesn’t mean he knows nothing about health.
Mike Papantonio: Well, as if he’s a bad guy. I saw that and it’s like, I’m a lawyer by trade too, but hopefully I get really dangerous products off the market. Hopefully I save many lives.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. But you would be great as Attorney General. Do I want you in charge of the public health making medical decisions? Probably not. Just like me, I’ve worked in the legal industry for over 20 years. Does that mean I should be Attorney general? Well, I’d probably do a better job in the last 20 years of Attorney Generals. But no, I shouldn’t.
Mike Papantonio: I think you would.
Farron Cousins: Because this is not what I was trained in. This is not what I have experience in. This is not the thing for me. If Bobby wanted to be a part of this administration, it should have been put me in the EPA right now. I would support that a hundred percent. I would be advocating for him. I would be making phone calls to senators to approve him for that. In my opinion, this is not a place for him and I agree with these doctors. I understand, they’re bought and paid for.
Mike Papantonio: They’re absolutely bought and paid for, Farron. Just so you understand.
Farron Cousins: The points they make or points I’ve also made.
Mike Papantonio: The American Medical Association, do you know who fought tobacco in our lawsuit more than anybody when it first started out? The American Medical Association. They were so in bed with the insurance industry.
Farron Cousins: Because prior to that, they were in bed with the tobacco industry. They were doing ads for them. It’s crazy.
Mike Papantonio: Exactly. So I have very little confidence or faith in the medical, certainly in the organized. This is all coming from the American Medical Association. It’s coming by people who have such close ties with the pharmaceutical industry, Bobby scares the hell out of them, and I’m glad he does. He’s saying, there should be standards on how you test vaccines. Don’t make us your Guinea pigs. We want to know what happens. It’s common sense kind of stuff. But the point is, they’re organized now. I still think he’s going to prevail, to tell you the truth. I think he’s strong.
Farron Cousins: At this point, to be honest, I don’t think any of Trump’s nominees are going to fail. None of them. So, it is what it is. But Trump has got his senators in line to the point where even some of the real, like Kash Patel people, I’m of the opinion, at this point. I thought many of them would fail. I don’t think that anymore. I think every single one of them will get the appointment they’ve been selected for.
