I would like to issue a challenge to any neo-con out there to square his/her views with traditional conservative ones (e.g. Edmund Burke, NOT Rush Limbaugh). In the title of this post I am borrowing a phrase I heard during a course on business crimes - "Fortune 500 Conservatives". I have given a lot of thought as to what that phrase means and I have decided that it is best applied to those who identify with the "neo-conservative movement".
To make this conversation relevant, here are a few things that sicken me about the neo-con hijacking of our government that has occurred over the past 7 years:
(1) People at the FAA have been threatened with their jobs for...well, doing their jobs. Source.
(2) The Dept. of Justice has been politicized to the point that their legal opinions have become little more than punditry. Source. Source. Source.
(3) The FDA is in bed with pharmaceutical companies. Source.
(4) The Fed bailing out a failing investment bank that got caught in a tangle of irresponsible investments. Source.
(5) The privatization of our military. Source. Source. Source.
And those are just a few.
My beef with the Fortune 500 Conservatives is that their "political philosophy" is completely self-serving, disingenuous, and serves as an eroding force to the underpinnings of our system of governance. The proper role of government regulatory agencies such as the FAA and FDA is to ensure that the public safety remains a concern to corporations who are increasingly more concerned with the bottom line and who do not seem to mind a little collateral damage, so long as the venture remains profitable. Putting industry insiders in charge of regulatory agencies is a classic case of the fox watching the hen house.
Fortune 500 Conservatives are disingenuous in that they distract their "base" voters with red-herring issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and flag-burning to attain positions of power and then proceed to loot the government power coffers for their own benefit. All this comes at the expense of the American public and causes a significant portion of voters to continually vote against their own interests. And what is more insulting is that when a political candidate calls these people out, such as here, that person is immediately tagged as out of touch or elitist.
Over the past 7 years we have witnessed a large scale hijack of our government, particularly the agencies that are supposed to be guarding the public from being savaged by powerful corporations and inhuman forces of the private sector. For example, after telling us over and over how scared we should be of terrorist threats our government set up the Office of Homeland Security. Sounds like a good idea. I'm all for "homeland security". Of course what most of us did not realize is that in the process the director of the DHS, now Michael Chertoff, has the power to waive laws that get in the way of his intended projects.
Let's think about that last fact for a moment. One guy, who was never elected, has the power to unilaterally circumnavigate laws passed by Congress (all elected) to further projects that he and his army of bureaucrats have initiated. And for what do you think DHS uses this vast power? Stopping the latest Al-Quaeda threat? Strengthening the security around nuclear power plants? Nope, they're waiving environmental regulations to expedite the building of a fence along our border with Mexico. Source. If that is not eroding the separation of powers, the single-biggest check and balance on government provided our Constitution, then I don't know what is.
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4 comments:
The FDA is turning into an absolute joke. Unsafe drugs are being approved and mass marketed with ease. Unfortunately, even if the FDA wanted to do its job, it probably couldn't because of serious funding and turnover issues that have plagued the agency for the last decade. Oh well, at least the FDA has made sure that our senior citizens can achieve 48 hour erections. Maybe they'll get in bed with the pharmaceutical companies too.
I am not a neocon and I think it's pretty ridiculous that so many of our agencies have replaced politics with safety (not to mention the red herrings). However, in defense of the FDA:
1. You can't find experts that haven't worked with/ received funds from pharmaceutical companies before. We want the best people in the field to be reviewing the data at the FDA, and whether those people get their experience working in industry or doing research in academia, a large portion of the money comes from drug companies. Of course the people on these panels should disclose who they get money from, but excluding anyone with a business relationship with "Big Pharma" would pretty much leave the secretaries and janitors over at the FDA.
2. Billy Bob- The FDA definitely makes mistakes, and that sucks. But considering how many drugs they have flow through the place and the complexity of the data, it's inevitable. A lot of these drugs (like Vytorin) look great years and years into testing, but there's things you just can't know until it's approved and out in the general population. If you have some way to make it safer without holding up life-saving drugs, that would be great- but cutting out people who have been employed by pharmaceutical companies is not going to do it.
Don't blame the neocons- blame biology.
Rob W.: my problem with the neo-cons is that they put too much faith in the private sector and market forces when it comes to regulation and representation of the consumer's interest. The pure capitalist notion is that, when corporations act against the consumers' interests, demand will dwindle and the corporation will be forced to correct its ways.
The problem with that notion specific to the FDA and drug companies is that, for the vast majority of prescription drugs, demand is inelastic. When you compound that problem with prescription drug ads and websites that give the consumer a virtual roadmap on how to conduct a drug-specific doctor visit, you have a real problem with overconsumption that is only exacerbated by one of the industry's main watchdogs, the FDA, being run by industry insiders.
You are right to point out that many people at the FDA necessarily are trained in the private sector, however, it doesn't seem very difficult to put non-industry people at the top who can institute procedures and policies to ameliorate any insider dealing that might be going on and it seems equally simple that the people who received their training in the private sector can put their biases aside and realize the gravity of their positions at the FDA.
I'm not saying that drug regulation is, or should be, a perfect process. I'm just saying that the FDA has been hijacked, and it has been neo-cons who did it.
The problem, at a purely theoretical level, is that neo-cons tend to embrace the more draconian aspects of traditional conservatism, without the necessary balancing force of small, but forceful government ruling over an obedient populace.
Senor (or Senora) Blue:
First, the specific "FDA is broken" example you cited in the post: The example you use states that one of the FDA people pushing for approval of Tarceva (Carolyn Aldige) heads an advocacy group that received money from the manufacturer, which you seem to imply means that the FDA has been hijacked by drug companies (please correct me if I misrepresented what you're saying). However, the advocacy group in question received 11.2 million dollars in funding last year; the drug company donated less than $75,000. If you were the head of a cancer research foundation, would you be swayed by a donation amounting to less than 0.7% of your haul? I wouldn't- that's a drop in the bucket, and it's understandable that she could forget about it. It's worth noting that Tarceva has actually helped people with cancer, so it looks like it was a good decision to approve it.
Second, the more general prospect of reducing influence by having non-industry people lead: this is put forward as a way to reduce conflicts of interest. However, even someone who has spent their entire career in a university/academic setting will have significant ties to drug companies. Many of the grants that academics receive come from drug companies, and when they actually make something that works (which is what we want them to do), it's always brought to market in partnership with a drug company. The experts in charge of making the scientific decisions will always have some financial ties to "Big Pharma"; we just have to make sure, as you say, that they put their biases aside and and focus on the science. I think that's mostly being done.
Third, the blanket "FDA has been hijacked, and it's the neocons that have done it" idea: I totally reject this. I'd ask you to find some examples where undue political pressure (on Bush appointees) has resulted in an unsafe drug making it to market. Even the "Plan B" emergency contraceptive fiasco only delayed the over-the-counter distribution by two years; in the end, the system worked.
Finally, the neocon problem in general: I do think that our nation has been distracted by such things as flag burning and same-sex marriage, and that our budget has gotten out of control while our civil liberties have been eroded. It seems to me that actual conservatives would be pissed as hell about that; I sure am. Keep fighting the good fight- just make sure the people you're fighting (like Carolyn Aldige) are actually part of the problem.
If you're interested in inside Pharma stuff (I myself have no ties to Pharma, if you're wondering), with some good chemistry thrown in, Derek Lowe's "In the Pipeline" blog is a great resource:
http://www.corante.com/pipeline/
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