![]() Thus, Project HOPE is still busily promoting their novel brand of medical diplomacy across the world and even before the coronavirus pandemic burst forth from Wuhan they were proud of their longstanding humanitarian operations covering the world which even included their having a base in this fateful city. ‘Hope’ provides a critical weapon in the industries ongoing efforts to divert public attention their systemic profiteering. In lieu of any meaningful democratic reform of the pharmaceutical industry, actual change has been supplanted by ‘hope’ for change. The domestic element of this strategy eventually paid handsome dividends in projecting the pharmaceutical industry from the regulatory gaze of the state. Moreover, its aid efforts were aimed not just at winning the hearts and minds of foreign subjects, but also the domestic audience too. ![]() With Big Pharma stumping up medical supplies and much more beside, the long voyage of SS Hope – the converted war ship delivering all this aid for Project HOPE - was a propaganda coup par excellence for the US national security state. Connor, (the president of pharmaceutical giant Merck & Company), and George Meany (the right-wing head of the AFL-CIO). Jackson (an executive vice president at the Time-Life Corporation and a former psychological warfare advisor to President Eisenhower), Frank Pace, Jr., (the president of defense contractor General Dynamics), John T. Project HOPE was the name given to this enterprise and the bulk of their work was undertaken in public by Dr William Walsh, a medical doctor, but other better known voices involved included C.D. ![]() Take for example, the late 1950s when psychological warfare experts enlisted the support of Big Pharma and the weapons industry in donating medical supplies to the globe’s poor. To be generous to all involved, the unhealthy fixation with using propaganda to shield Big Pharma’s activities from democratic scrutiny rather than addressing inadequacies is hardly new. Yet the only thing that really seems to improve is the industry’s ability to funnel record-breaking sums of money into the pockets of politicians, doctors, regulatory agencies, and journalists to help them flog their often dangerous and many times unnecessary pharmaceutical wares. Selling Big Pharma: The Good Ship “SS Hope”īig Pharma’s flagrant disregard for human life has already been the subject of many exposés. By examining the activities of these two corporations in relation to health profiteering both before and during this ongoing pandemic, this essay will prove beyond all reasonable doubt that there is no reason to be optimistic that corporations can be trusted to promote the best interests of humanity. The second is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a non-profit corporation which is controlled by Bill Gates - a philanthropist whose personal wealth has, with the help of tax loopholes, doubled over the past decade. It will debunk some of the nonsense surrounding the ostensibly humanitarian actions undertaken by two corporate giants meddling in the politics of global health: the first is the world’s largest vaccines company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which happens to be the only pharmaceutical giant that has committed to making any COVID-19 vaccine that they develop “affordable” for all. It will do so by initially bursting the bubble on the ways that Big Pharma PR to deflect attention away from its profiteering through propaganda work. This essay therefore aims to put the lie to this self-serving propaganda. Of course, Big Pharma and their political enablers would like us all to believe that they should have even more power over our health services. This is the only way to remove the perverse financial incentives that places profit before human need. It is high time that we bring vital private health industries under democratic public ownership. This is why Big Pharma and the management of our health should not remain in the hands of huge corporations. ![]() Big Pharma has done some truly despicable things over the past hundred years or so. Pharmaceutical corporations make billions providing drugs to help improve some people’s lives, in much the same way that privately-run hospitals provide care to those who can afford to pay.
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