The Big Pharma Conspiracy Theory

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The Big Pharma conspiracy theory Correspondence to: Robert Blaskiewicz Department of English Robert Blaskiewicz University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI, USA USA [email protected]

Abstract This essay outlines the broad themes of the conspi- pharmaceutical industry; rather it is the pharma- racy theory that pharmaceutical companies, regula- ceutical industry as they imagine it. In these tors, politicians, and others are secretly working in stories, ‘Big Pharma’ is shorthand for an abstract consort against the public interest. This so-called entity comprised of corporations, regulators, Big Pharma conspiracy theory shares a number of NGOs, politicians, and often physicians, all with a features with other conspiracy narratives, but some finger in the trillion-dollar prescription pharma- features make this particular subgenre of conspiracy ceutical pie. Eliding all of these separate entities theory especially intractable and dangerous. into a monolithic agent of evil allows the conspiracy theorist to mistakenly ignore the complex and con- Keywords: Conspiracy theory, Pharmaceutical flicting interests that they represent. This agent is, companies, Paranoia, Vaccines as are all antagonists in conspiratorial narratives, improbably powerful, competent, and craven, and it allows the conspiracy theorist to cast himself in The so-called Big Pharma conspiracy theory shares a the role of crusader and defender of a way of life, number of features with all other conspiracy the- a Manichean dichotomy that was identified in ories. First, it shares the same basic plot: a relatively Richard Hofstadter’s classic treatise on America’s small number of people are working in secret recurring conspiracism, ‘The Paranoid Style in against the public good. Second is a belief that American Politics’.1 most people are ignorant of the truth and that only Like many conspiracy theories, there may be real a small number of people with secret or suppressed tangible facts that undergird the elaborate conspi- knowledge (the conspiracy theorists) know the real racy theory. For instance, pharmaceuticals have score. Third is the conspiracy theorists’ backward side effects, many of which are unpleasant, some approach to evidence: lack of evidence for the con- of which can be fatal. This basic fact of pharma- spiracy is evidence for the conspiracy, as is any dis- cology, however, has become the basis of blanket confirming evidence. Lastly, the way supposedly claims about the universal dangerousness of confirmatory evidence is handled capitalizes on pharmaceutical products. Additionally, not all common mental shortcuts, misperceptions, and medical interventions are successful, and in our liti- non-rational cues, which make the conspiracy the- gious culture people often seem to not understand ories all the more memorable, compelling, and con- that sometimes adverse outcomes occur when tagious. This maddening mixture of mistakes makes everything is done correctly. Nowhere are these conspiracy theories very difficult to combat. ideas more prevalent than in conspiracy theories Big Pharma conspiracy theories, however, in all involving cancer treatments. Cancer treatments are their variety, constitute their own genre within the often invasive and dangerous, and while the best larger category of conspiratorial narratives. In practices, in the aggregate, improve outcomes for much the same way that the gothic novel has its patients, they can still be unpleasant, even trau- own conventions (for example, a heroine impri- matic. They may fail certain patients entirely, so soned, set in a dark old spooky house riddled that a patient may experience all of the side effects with hidden passages, and hints of the paranormal), of a treatment and none of the hoped-for benefits. the Big Pharma conspiracy theory has a number of To the conspiracist, ubiquitous advertisements by conventions that set it apart from other conspiracy pharmaceutical companies become ‘mind control’ theories. In this case, the villain is the or ‘brainwashing’, while industry lobbying Pharmaceutical Industry. It’s not the actual becomes ‘corruption’.

Conspiracy theories may be a way to reassure The big drug companies are makin’ a killing oneself that there is an order to our lives, that cala- Collectin’ the billions and gettin’ away like a mity and disaster are not meaningless or random.2 James Bond villain This in turn enables people to identify an enemy Cause they’re willin’ to do almost anything to fight. When patients (and their loved ones) are Just to make money with the flu vaccine. forced to accept a serious disease, they often experience powerlessness, especially when no cure is Adams actually embraces both cui bono claims, that all available. This may itself trigger a search for a you need is vitamin D to ward off the swine flu (but culprit to blame for their suffering. Big Pharma is that drug companies can’t charge as much for it) and a convenient target and is often imagined as with- that the flu was manufactured in order to sell the holding a cure. Indeed, a major premise of the Big vaccine. He also manages to invoke a global depopu- Pharma conspiracy theory is the ‘cui bono’ fallacy: lation conspiracy alongside creating a market for vac- he who benefits from misfortune must be the cines: two agendas that are hard to reconcile, as one cause of that misfortune. Such logic has been used involves killing people and the other saving as in other, non-medical conspiracy theories: Franklin many people as possible by selling them vaccines. D Roosevelt got the war he wanted, therefore, he This is a typical feature of conspiracist thought – a was behind the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; 2012 study by Wood, Douglas, and Sutton found George W Bush and his handlers wanted to go to that the ‘endorsement of mutually incompatible con- war in the Middle East, so they brought down the spiracy theories are positively correlated’.4 World Trade Centre as a pretence to invade Iraq; Anti-vaccine conspiracy theories play on many of European Jews were de-ghettoized as Napoleon the same fears that run-of-the-mill Big Pharma con- swept across the continent–they must have been spiracy theories do – including fears over side behind the revolution that led to his ascent to power. effects, ‘unnatural’ substances in them and a In the case of the Big Pharma conspiracy theory, general suspicion of the profit motive in health cui bono reasoning appears in a pair of often-levelled care – but these theories are often supercharged by charges. The more common charge is that a cure is the fears of parents. Parents who believe that their being withheld to keep people on more expensive, children are ‘vaccine-damaged’ and who are strug- less effective medical regimes. In the case of gling to understand and assign blame for an intract- cancer, the cheap, easy, and ‘natural’ suppressed able, life-changing disease with no cure, have cures range from baking soda, to marijuana, to vita- created one of the most stubborn and dangerous mins, to apricot kernels (which are banned because conspiracy theories. Following the widespread the amygdalin they contain breaks down into attention received by Andrew Wakefield’s entirely hydrogen cyanide).3 The more extreme charge is fraudulent 1998 Lancet article linking the MMR that diseases are deliberately manufactured mol- vaccine to autism (withdrawn by the journal in ecule-by-molecule or weaponised in labs and 2011), childhood vaccination rates plummeted released onto the populace in order to give compa- below levels needed to support community immu- nies an excuse to sell medications. One such high- nity in many areas, and children started to contract profile accusation of this, I think, was during the diseases that many younger physicians had never 2009 H1N1 swine flu outbreak. Mike Adams, an seen. The resilience of the conspiracy theory target- inexplicably popular online health guru (he calls ing vaccine manufacturers and researchers can be himself the ‘Health Ranger’) who advocates nearly seen in the fact that it persists despite over a dozen every conspiracy theory, made this charge in 2009 studies demonstrating otherwise, including one in a bizarre little rap called ‘Don’t Inject Me (The Cochrane review that had a sample size of about Swine Flu Vaccine Song)’: 14.7 million children.5 The theory is as popular as ever and is still pushed by the likes of Jenny Don’t you know the swine flu was made by McCarthy, Generation Rescue, and innumerable man alternative medicine practitioners. Fear, it seems, is Pharmaceutical scam more contagious than reason. […] So, what can be done to combat the Big Pharma All you parents grab your kids conspiracy theory? Sadly, the theory will always be And shoot ‘em up just like guinea pigs, around because peddlers of alternative medicine find Inject your teens and your babies in the crib; Big Pharma to be a useful adversary in their quest to And when they get paralyzed, sell their questionable remedies and because of the That’s when you realize role that belief plays in people’s lives. Furthermore, There’s no way to undo what you did. once the theory has taken root in someone’smind,

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it’s often impossible to dislodge it, as the conspiracy 2. Melley T. Agency panic and the culture of conspiracy. theory turns those who argue against it into ‘paid In: Knight P. editor. Conspiracy nation: the politics of paranoia in postwar America. New York: New York shills’ or ‘sheeple’.Itisbesttocatchpeoplebefore University Press; 2002. p. 57–81. they fall into conspiratorial beliefs. Secrecy and ignor- 3. Kenward M. Laetrile and the law. New Scientist. 1979 ance beget conspiracy theories; they are best combated January 11; p. 88. by education and transparency. 4. Wood MJ, Douglas KM, Sutton RM. Dead and alive: beliefs in contradictory conspiracy theories. Soc Psychol Personality Sci 2012;3:767–73. References 5. Demicheli V, Rivetti A, Debalini MG, Di Pietrantonj C. 1. Hofstadter R. The paranoid style in American politics. Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children. In: The paranoid style in American politics. New York: Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2012;(2). Art. No.: Random House Digital, Inc.; 2008. p. 3–40 CD004407.

Author information Robert Blaskiewicz is a Visiting Assistant Professor of theories and other extraordinary claims, as well as veter- Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. His ans’ combat narratives. research interests include the rhetoric of conspiracy

Fun with medical studies

What a shame this study has finished, as judging by Helen Baldwin the protocol I would have quite liked to have Scinopsis, Fréjus, France enrolled… [email protected]

‘Applications will be done by massage until com- plete penetration by the medical staff’.

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