"Many of us consult with the pharmaceutical industry, which I think is a very good thing." Those are disturbing words from an FDA employee and especially from the top government drug regulator, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf.
It would be hard to find a more conflict-of-interest and scandal sullied commissioner than Califf.
In financial disclosure information for a 2013 article in Circulation, Califf's lists over 40 financial links to drugmakers. After an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) this information appears:
"Dr Califf receives research grants that partially support his salary from Amylin, Johnson & Johnson, Scios, Merck/Schering-Plough, Schering-Plough Research Institute, Novartis Pharma, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Aterotiovax, Bayer, Roche, and Lilly
Dr Califf also consults for TheHeart.org, Johnson & Johnson, Scios, Kowa Research Institute, Nile, Parkview, Orexigen Therapeutics, Pozen, WebMD, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, AstraZeneca, Bayer/Ortho-McNeil, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Daiichi Sankyo, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, Medtronic, Merck, Novartis, sanofi-aventis, XOMA, University of Florida, Pfizer, Roche, Servier International, DSI-Lilly, Janssen R&D, CV Sight, Regeneron, and Gambro; all income from these consultancies is donated to nonprofit organizations
Dr Califf holds equity in Nitrox LLC, N30 Pharma, and Portola."
We have Biden to thank for Califf's tenure at the FDA and now the Comish is hysterically calling, in JAMA, his published conflicts-of-interest "errors" in case the upcoming election dislodges him. Oops.
At Duke university, Califf presided over a discredited drug trial of the blood thinner Xarelto and worse. An elaborate fabricated data scandal pertaining to an experimental cancer treatment at Duke occurred while he was Vice Chancellor at the university. According to CBS News, Duke University's announcement that it had found a way to match a patient's tumor to the correct chemotherapy drug was likely "one of the biggest medical research frauds ever--one that deceived dying patients, the best medical journals and a great university." This is FDA Commissioner material?
After leaving the FDA in 2017 after serving Obama and before being resurrected by Biden, Califf became head of medical strategy at Google parent company Alphabet Inc, one of the top "Big Tech" companies in the world.
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