Lesson from America, 1961
by Cephas Alain In his final speech from the White House, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that an arms race would take resources from other areas – such as building schools and hospitals. As interest has increased in the lab leak hypothesis for the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic it has cast the spotlight upon the behaviours of parts of the scientific community, including the role of peer review, conflicts of interest and the ownership and funding of professional journals. In turn, this can all be considered within national and international political and organisational contexts. ‘Big Pharma’ is also under scrutiny. This article seeks to explain the general nature of the potential threat posed by Big Pharma. It is not a new story. Indeed, it can be usefully discussed with the help of a 60 year-old Presidential address. On September 5th, 2021, LBC radio host and commentator Maajid Nawaz drew an analogy from Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the nation as 34th President of the United States on January 17th, 1961. Maajid Nawaz suggested that the threat to democratic society described by President Eisenhower of the ‘Military-Industrial Complex’ has, at least to some degree, been supplanted by a ‘Big Pharma Industrial Complex’. He also suggested that the behaviours of governments in pursuing Covid related policies, such as the vaccination of ...
