Unsolved:Big Pharma conspiracy theories

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Big Pharma conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories which claim that pharmaceutical companies, especially large corporations, act in sinister and secretive ways, such as concealing effective treatments, or even intentionally causing and worsening a wide range of diseases, in pursuit of profitability, or for other nefarious reasons.[1][2] Some theories have included the claim that natural alternative remedies to health problems are being suppressed, the claim that drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS are ineffective and harmful, the claim that a cure for all cancers has been discovered but hidden from the public, claims that COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective, and that alternative cures are available for COVID-19. In most cases the conspiracy theorists have blamed pharmaceutical companies' search for profits. A range of authors have shown these claims to be false, though some of these authors nevertheless maintain that other criticisms of the pharmaceutical industry are legitimate.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

History and definition

According to Steven Novella the term Big Pharma has come to connote a demonized form of the pharmaceutical industry.[5] Professor of writing Robert Blaskiewicz has written that conspiracy theorists use the term Big Pharma as "shorthand for an abstract entity comprising corporations, regulators, NGOs, politicians, and often physicians, all with a finger in the trillion-dollar prescription pharmaceutical pie".[1]

According to Blaskiewicz, the Big Pharma conspiracy theory has four classic traits: first, the assumption that the conspiracy is perpetrated by a small malevolent cabal; secondly, the belief that the public at large is ignorant of the truth; thirdly, that its believers treat lack of evidence as evidence; and finally, that the arguments deployed in support of the theory are irrational, misconceived, or otherwise mistaken.[1]

In the 1970s and 1980s, the conspiracy theory was promoted by Ann Wigmore who held that diseases, including cancer and HIV/AIDS, could be effectively treated with a raw food diet. In this context, Wigmore believed that the pharmaceutical industry was part of a conspiracy to keep the population at large ill.[10]

André Picard wrote in 2009 that the internet had radically changed the nature of popular scientific discourse from being infrequent and deferential to widespread and conspiracy based: scientific debate was often supplanted by dismissal of science as being "part of some vast conspiracy". In the conspiracist world view, "Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacologists, biochemists, immunologists, geneticists and journalists are not to be trusted. They are all on the take".[11]

Research in Italy in 2016 found that nearly half the adult population believed that pharmaceutical companies hinder the development of effective medications to heal serious diseases, which according to the authors is a conspiracy theory, and that such beliefs were negatively correlated to mainstream religion while having anti-science and anti-elitism bases.[2]

Manifestations

The conspiracy theory has a variety of different specific manifestations. Each has different narratives, but they always cast "Big Pharma" as the villain of the piece.[1]

HIV/AIDS

Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, many dangerous hypotheses have been put forward to explain the origin and nature of the disease. One conspiracy theory claims that AIDS was created by the US government to control and/or wipe out gays and African Americans. Also, there is a cure for HIV/AIDS that is withheld from the poor.[12][13] Other theories say that although the virus is harmful, the risks of antiretroviral drugs outweigh the benefits. The drugs are said to be toxins that are spread by doctors who have been corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry.[14]

In a 2006 column for Harper's Magazine, journalist Celia Farber claimed that the antiretroviral drug nevirapine was part of a conspiracy by the "scientific-medical complex" to spread toxic drugs.[15] Farber said that AIDS is not caused by HIV and that nevirapine had been unethically administered to pregnant women in clinical trials, leading to a fatality.[15] Farber's theories and claims were refuted by scientists, but, according to researcher Seth Kalichman, the resulting publicity represented a breakthrough moment for AIDS denialism.[16]

The former president of South Africa , Thabo Mbeki, influenced by AIDS denier Peter Duesberg, introduced policies that denied treatments to AIDS patients. According to estimates this led, among other things, to more than 300,000 people dying prematurely.[17][18]

Cure for cancer

A recurring conspiracy theory claims that the pharmaceutical industry has a cure for cancer, but suppresses it so that they can continue to make billions on the "ineffective" treatments currently given to cancer patients.[19] This was believed by 27% of the American public according to a 2005 survey.[20] The argument is that pharmaceutical companies are slowing down research for a comprehensive cure for cancer by developing high-profit, single-purpose treatments rather than focusing on a supposed cure-all for all cancers.[21]

Vaccines

The idea that vaccines were created by the pharmaceutical industry to make people sick, or to alter human DNA,[22][23] has been around for a long time but has been given new life during the COVID-19 pandemic.[24][25]

The conspiracy theory that vaccines make people autistic can be traced back to a study published in The Lancet in February 1998.[26][27] Andrew Wakefield claimed that there is a link between MMR vaccine and autism. The study later turned out to be fraudulent, and led to Wakefield being struck off the medical register. The Lancet also withdrew the article.[28] Although a number of studies have disproved the link between autism and vaccines,[29] the conspiracy theory has survived in various forms, and it has been spread by, among others, Donald Trump.[30][31]

Other conspiracy theories suggest that vaccines are used to implant microchips for surveillance and thought control.[32] Among others, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been accused of wanting to microchip the world's population through global vaccination programs.[33][34][35]

COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic is surrounded by a wide range of conspiracy theories, including the postulation that COVID-19 does not exist at all or is just a mild flu.[36][37]

During the pandemic, there was a surge of conspiracies about the origins of the disease, such as claiming that the virus was created in a laboratory. However, strong evidence suggests that the disease-causing virus, SARS-CoV-2, is a naturally evolved strain belonging to the coronavirus subfamily.[38][39]

The 2020 video Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid-19, promotes the conspiracist claim that vaccines are "a money-making enterprise that causes medical harm". In the video, former research scientist Judy Mikovits spread the notion that "Big Pharma", Bill Gates and the World Health Organization led a conspiracy, in which they acted together as a "circular cabal" with the aim of killing Americans.[40] The video was released on May 4, 2020, and garnered millions of views, making it one of the most widespread pieces of COVID-19 misinformation.

Natural cures

In the book Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About, author Kevin Trudeau claims that there are all-natural cures for serious illnesses including cancer, herpes, arthritis, AIDS, acid reflux disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, attention deficit disorder, muscular dystrophy, and that these are all being deliberately hidden and suppressed from the public by the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and major food and drug companies.[41] The book has been the focus of much controversy since its publication, with widespread allegations of fraud.[42][43]

Reception

A common claim among proponents of the conspiracy theory is that pharmaceutical companies suppress negative research about their drugs by financially pressuring researchers and journals. Skeptic Benjamin Radford, while conceding there is "certainly a grain of truth" to these claims, notes that there are in fact papers critical of specific drugs published in top journals on a regular basis.[3] A prominent example noted by Radford is a systematic review published in the British Medical Journal showing that paracetamol is ineffective for lower back pain and has minimal effectiveness for osteoarthritis.[3][44]

In his 2012 book Bad Pharma, Ben Goldacre heavily criticises the pharmaceutical industry but rejects any conspiracy theories. He argues that the problems are "perpetrated by ordinary people, but many of them may not even know what they've done".[4]

Steven Novella writes that while the pharmaceutical industry has a number of aspects which justly deserve criticism, the "demonization" of it is both cynical and intellectually lazy.[5] He goes on to consider that overblown attacks on "Big Pharma" actually let the pharmaceutical industry "off the hook" since they distract from and tarnish more considered criticisms.[5] He has also written, on Skepticblog, about the general misunderstanding and sensationalizing of cancer research that typically accompanies a conspiratorial mindset. He points out that cures for cancer, rather than being hidden, are not the cures they are initially touted to be by the media and either result in a dead end, further research goals, or a decrease in the mortality rate for a specific type of cancer.[6]

Dave Roos and Oliver Childs have criticized the idea that holding back a cure for cancer would result in more profit than presenting one.[7][8] Dina Fine Maron further notes that this view largely ignores the fact that cancer is not a single disease but instead many, and the fact that large strides have been made in the fight against cancer.[9]

In 2016, David Robert Grimes published a research paper elaborating about the mathematical non-viability of conspiracy theories in general.[45] He estimated that if there were a big pharma conspiracy to conceal a cure for cancer, it would be exposed after about 3.2 years due to the sheer number of people required to keep it secret.[46]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Blaskiewicz, Robert (2013). "The Big Pharma conspiracy theory". Medical Writing 22 (4): 259. doi:10.1179/2047480613Z.000000000142. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Religious and conspiracist? An analysis of the relationship between the dimensions of individual religiosity and belief in a big pharma conspiracy theory". Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica 52 (1): 33–50. 12 May 2021. doi:10.1017/ipo.2021.15. ISSN 0048-8402. "The wording of the survey item is as follows: "Pharmaceutical companies hinder the development of effective medications to heal serious diseases because they fear losing profits".". 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Radford, Benjamin (12 January 2016). "Big Pharma Conspiracy Debunked". https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/big_pharma_conspiracy_debunked/. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Goldacre, Ben (2008). "Foreword". Bad Pharma. Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0-00-735074-2. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Novella, Steven (22 April 2010). "Demonizing 'Big Pharma'". Science-Based Medicine. http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/demonizing-big-pharma/. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Novella, Steven. "ANOTHER CURE FOR CANCER?". http://www.skepticblog.org/2011/05/16/another-cure-for-cancer/. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Roos, Dave (5 June 2018). "Is There a Hidden Cure for Cancer?". https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/no-there-is-no-hidden-cancer-cure.htm. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Childs, Oliver (24 March 2014). "Don't believe the hype – 10 persistent cancer myths debunked". Cancer Research UK. https://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2014/03/24/dont-believe-the-hype-10-persistent-cancer-myths-debunked/#miracle-cure. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Maron, Dina Fine. "Can We Truly "Cure" Cancer?". https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-truly-cure-cancer/. 
  10. ↑ "Chakras, crystals and conspiracy theories: how the wellness industry turned its back on Covid science". The Guardian. 11 November 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/11/injecting-poison-will-never-make-you-healthy-how-the-wellness-industry-turned-its-back-on-covid-science. 
  11. ↑ "Bloggers, there's no Big Pharma conspiracy". Globe & Mail (Toronto, Canada). 5 March 2009. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/bloggers-theres-no-big-pharma-conspiracy/article20445149/. 
  12. ↑ Lancet, The (2005-02-05). "Conspiracy theories of HIV/AIDS" (in English). The Lancet 365 (9458): 448. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)17875-1. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 15705438. 
  13. ↑ Heller, Jacob (January 2015). "Rumors and Realities: Making Sense of HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Narratives and Contemporary Legends". American Journal of Public Health 105 (1): e43–e50. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.302284. PMID 25393166. 
  14. ↑ Specter, Michael (2007-03-05). "The AIDS Denialists" (in en-US). The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/12/the-denialists. Retrieved 2022-05-06. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Schaffer, A. (2006). "Drug trials and error: conspiracy theories about big pharma would amuse, if they were not a matter of life and death". MIT Technology Review 109 (2): 70, May 1. http://www.technologyreview.com/review/405744/drug-trials-and-error/.  (Subscription content?)
  16. ↑ Nattrass, N.; Kalichman, S. (2009). Denying AIDS: conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and human tragedy. Springer. p. 183. ISBN 9780387794754. https://books.google.com/books?id=_mtDBCDwxugC&pg=PA183. 
  17. ↑ Chigwedere, Pride; Seage, George R. III; Gruskin, Sofia; Lee, Tun-Hou; Essex, M. (2008-12-01). "Estimating the Lost Benefits of Antiretroviral Drug Use in South Africa" (in en-US). Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 49 (4): 410–415. doi:10.1097/QAI.0b013e31818a6cd5. ISSN 1525-4135. PMID 19186354. https://journals.lww.com/jaids/Fulltext/2008/12010/Estimating_the_Lost_Benefits_of_Antiretroviral.10.aspx. 
  18. ↑ Weigmann, Katrin (2018-02-28). "The genesis of a conspiracy theory". EMBO Reports 19 (4): e45935. doi:10.15252/embr.201845935. PMID 29491005. 
  19. ↑ "Could Somebody Be Hiding The Cure For Cancer? Our Experts Explain Why Not" (in en). https://www.worldwidecancerresearch.org/news-opinion/2020/march/could-somebody-be-hiding-the-cure-for-cancer/. 
  20. ↑ Gansler, Ted; Henley, S. Jane; Stein, Kevin; Nehl, Eric J.; Smigal, Carol; Slaughter, Edwin (2005). "Sociodemographic determinants of cancer treatment health literacy". Cancer (Wiley) 104 (3): 653–660. doi:10.1002/cncr.21194. ISSN 0008-543X. PMID 15983986. 
  21. ↑ Bernstein, Jake (23 April 2014). "How Big Pharma Holds Back in the War on Cancer". The Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-big-pharma-holds-back-in-the-war-on-cancer. 
  22. ↑ "The COVID-19 vaccine does not change human DNA" (in en). https://www.unicef.org/montenegro/en/stories/covid-19-vaccine-does-not-change-human-dna. 
  23. ↑ Forster, Victoria. "Covid-19 Vaccines Can't Alter Your DNA, Here's Why" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2021/01/11/covid-19-vaccines-cant-alter-your-dna-heres-why/. 
  24. ↑ "How the Anti-Vax Movement Is Taking Over the Right" (in en). Time. https://time.com/6141699/anti-vaccine-mandate-movement-rally/. Retrieved 2022-05-06. 
  25. ↑ Lee, Jon D. (2021-01-11). "The Utter Familiarity of Even the Strangest Vaccine Conspiracy Theories" (in en). https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/familiarity-strangest-vaccine-conspiracy-theories/617572/. 
  26. ↑ "Do Vaccines Cause Autism?" (in en). https://cpp-hov.netlify.app//getting-vaccinated/vaccine-faq/do-vaccines-cause-autism. 
  27. ↑ Cummins, Eleanor (2019-02-02). "How autism myths came to fuel anti-vaccination movements" (in en-US). https://www.popsci.com/timeline-autism-myth-anti-vaccine/. 
  28. ↑ The Editors Of The Lancet (2010-02-06). "Retraction—Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children" (in English). The Lancet 375 (9713): 445. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60175-4. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 20137807. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)60175-4/abstract. 
  29. ↑ S. Gerber, Jeffrey; Offit, Paul A. (2010-07-22). "Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses". Clinical Infectious Diseases 48 (4): 456–461. doi:10.1086/596476. PMID 19128068. 
  30. ↑ "Trump claims vaccines and autism are linked - but his own experts vehemently disagree" (in en). 2018-05-05. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-vaccines-autism-links-anti-vaxxer-us-president-false-vaccine-a8331836.html. 
  31. ↑ Einbinder, J. K. Trotter, Nicole. "The powerful media mogul at the core of Trump's debunked views on vaccines and autism" (in en-US). https://www.insider.com/how-donald-trump-became-an-anti-vaccinationist-2019-9. 
  32. ↑ Sriskandarajah, Ike (2021-06-05). "Where did the microchip vaccine conspiracy theory come from anyway?" (in en). https://www.theverge.com/22516823/covid-vaccine-microchip-conspiracy-theory-explained-reddit. 
  33. ↑ Joyce, Kathryn. "The Long, Strange History of Bill Gates Population Control Conspiracy Theories" (in en-US). https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/05/12/the-long-strange-history-of-bill-gates-population-control-conspiracy-theories/. 
  34. ↑ "Are Bill Gates and the ID2020 Coalition Using COVID-19 To Build Global Surveillance State?" (in en-US). 22 April 2020. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-id2020/. 
  35. ↑ "CBS News | The posts on social media about you and coronavirus are considered the most widespread coronavirus falsehoods that exist ... To be clear, do you want a vaccine so that you can implant microchips into people?" (in en). https://twitter.com/cbsnews/status/1286073735561322505. 
  36. ↑ "Fact check: Flu does not kill 14 times more people than COVID-19" (in en). Reuters. 2020-09-23. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-flu-mortality-idUSKCN26E3FL. 
  37. ↑ "Fact check: The virus that causes COVID-19 exists, can be tested for and is not the flu" (in en). Reuters. 2020-09-10. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-covid-flu-idUSKBN2613BS. 
  38. ↑ "COVID: Top 10 current conspiracy theories" (in en-US). https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/covid-top-10-current-conspiracy-theories/. 
  39. ↑ "Covid: WHO says 'extremely unlikely' virus leaked from lab in China" (in en-GB). BBC News. 2021-02-09. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55996728. 
  40. ↑ "A disgraced scientist and a viral video: how a Covid conspiracy theory started". The Guardian. 14 May 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/coronavirus-viral-video-plandemic-judy-mikovits-conspiracy-theories. 
  41. ↑ Michael Shermer, "Cures and Cons: Natural scams "he" doesn't want you to know about," Scientific American, March 2006.
  42. ↑ Warner, Melanie (2005-08-28). "After Jail and More, Salesman Scores Big With Cure-All Book" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/business/media/after-jail-and-more-salesman-scores-big-with-cureall-book.html. 
  43. ↑ Powell, Mike (2005-08-10). "Cancer 'Cures' Are Empty Promises in Kevin Trudeau's 'Natural Cures' Book | Quackwatch" (in en-US). https://quackwatch.org/infomercial/reports/nycpb/. 
  44. ↑ Machado, G. C.; Maher, C. G.; Ferreira, P. H.; Pinheiro, M. B.; Lin, C.-W. C.; Day, R. O.; McLachlan, A. J.; Ferreira, M. L. (31 March 2015). "Efficacy and safety of paracetamol for spinal pain and osteoarthritis: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised placebo controlled trials". BMJ 350 (mar31 2): h1225. doi:10.1136/bmj.h1225. ISSN 1756-1833. PMID 25828856. 
  45. ↑ Grimes, David Robert (26 January 2016). Bauch, Chris T.. ed. "On the Viability of Conspiratorial Beliefs". PLOS ONE (Public Library of Science (PLoS)) 11 (1): e0147905. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147905. ISSN 1932-6203. PMID 26812482. Bibcode: 2016PLoSO..1147905G. 
  46. ↑ Berezow, Alex. "Maths study shows conspiracies 'prone to unravelling'". Science and Environment. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35411684. 

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