We’re publishing an original essay today by Cephas Alain – the pseudonym of a retired lawyer – about President Dwight G. Eisenhower’s extraordinarily prescient Presidential Address when he left office in 1961 in which he warned of the growing power of the military-industrial complex. As the LBC radio host and commentator Maajid Nawaz has pointed out, if you substitute ‘Big Pharma industrial complex’ then many of Eisenhower’s warnings have come to pass.
Just as Eisenhower could say back in 1961: “This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.” We might say the same of Global Big Pharma. Eisenhower recognised the way in which the military-industrial complex operated: “The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.” Lots of businesses, lots of employees, lots of shareholders (both individual and institutional), lots of lobbying and financing and funding makes influence inevitable. Eisenhower warned: “We recognise the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.” We should take careful note of his use of the word “grave”. That is this something that can place a nation in danger of serious harm. More specifically: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Once more we can see how this might easily occur in the context of Big Pharma, especially as the scientific and knowledge community is so clearly interlinked and operates both alongside and indeed within the responsibilities that modern Governments have taken on in the name of maintaining and improving public health – as broadly defined.
Eisenhower was clearly extremely concerned: “We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Worth reading in full.
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