Bye, Bye, FDA Commissioner Gottlieb - Why Are You Leaving So Soon?

Scott Gottlieb, MD, physician and venture capitalist, has been U.S. FDA Commissioner since May 11, 2017—not yet two years, and he handed in his resignation March 5, 2019, effective in one month, i.e., April 5, 2019. The reason given for leaving FDA is the usual ‘boiler plate’ verbiage: “To spend more time with my family.”

His rather quick departure has some folks wondering if the “water is getting too hot” regarding positions he has taken with pharmaceutical companies drug pricing and the blistering-hot backlash concerning vaccine issues, specifically his proposed imposition of mandates to make states enforce CDC/FDA vaccine recommendations, which states do not have to ‘obey’ in view of the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which leaves matters not given to the feds to become state matters. There is no directive regarding vaccines in the U.S. Constitution, so each state can have its own regulations and laws.

As a matter of fact,

The legal debate [about vaccinations] goes back more than a century and gives most of that power to the states.

The Court in Jacobson [1905] did, however, recognize that for some individuals a vaccine requirement could be harmful, creating room for medical exemptions where vaccines would be unduly harmful to the individual. [CJF emphasis]

Source: National Constitution Center

[Jacobson is a dramatic legal decision federal and state health agencies apparently do not want to abide by in granting “medical exemptions where vaccines would be unduly harmful to the individual.”

Potential vaccine harm can be ascertained by CDC/FDA allowing PCR (Polymerase chain reaction) tests performed on newborns, before any vaccinations are given, in order to determine whether there could be negative Cytochrome gene (CYP450) involvement.]

Furthermore, in 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court discussed vaccines as being “unavoidably unsafe products”. See BRUESEWITZ ET AL. v. WYETH LLC, FKA WYETH, INC., ET AL.

The ‘executive’ position Dr. Gottlieb decided upon regarding vaccine mandates bordered on overwhelmingly dictatorial—was there to be an FDA Dictator? Talk about push-back!

But then, there’s something else to consider, which may have prompted Gottlieb’s decision to resign, especially in view of the ‘hatchet-jobbing’ NeoDemocrats (Leftists/Socialists) in the 116^th Congress are ‘fawning over’ in going after President Trump’s former business partners and dealings – last count 80 individuals:

NEA has pathologically funded startup, healthcare, medical device, fraud that has killed, injured and cost taxpayers billions. I know because I’m the DOJ federal whistleblower who exposed NEA funding fraud at Acclarent (Johnson & Johnson owned). JNJ was ordered to pay $18 million in civil damages and former Acclarent CEO & VP of Sales were indicted, arrested, convicted and waiting sentencing for selling adulterated and misbranded medical device, funded in part by NEA. Their sentencing with Judge Allison Burroughs keeps getting pushed, and now we may understand why. Nothing like having someone who funded the medical device fraud heading the FDA to keep the good ole boys out of jail, where they belong. [1]

One headline reported this:

Taking the Billion Dollar Blinders off Venture Capital
Venture Capital: Funding A Fraud Case Study: Venture Capital Firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Incubator ExploraMed’s startups and Johnson & Johnson. [1]

Dr. Gottlieb’s extensive financial interests and ultimate divestiture were discussed in his assets divestiture letter he sent to Elizabeth J. Fischmann, Esq., Associate General Counsel for Ethics Designated Agency Ethics Official, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, dated March 28, 2017.

Understandably, it would not be unreasonable for one to question how Dr. Gottlieb got confirmed in view of the above NEA ethics issues, since NEA was the world’s largest venture capital firm in 2007.

Did the fact he was a former FDA employee ‘promise’ his automatic shoo in?

Gottlieb joined the FDA for the first time in 2003 as a senior adviser to Commissioner Mark McClellan. In February 2002, he became a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, a position he continued to hold at the time of his nomination for FDA commissioner with an annual income of $210,916. In 2004, Gottlieb served as director of medical policy development before moving that year to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as senior adviser to the administrator, when McClellan took over that position. Gottlieb returned to the FDA in 2005 as deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs. During this period, he underwent successful treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Gottlieb left the FDA in 2007 to become a partner in New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm that has worked with 188 different health care companies. His annual consulting fee for New Enterprise is $280,000. According to Gottlieb’s ethics disclosure document (pdf), he owns shares in the following clients of New Enterprise: American Pathology Partners; Bright Health; Collective Health; Golden State Medical; Radiology Partners; and U.S. Renal Care. [2]

Or, perhaps, is “past becoming prologue” at this stage of Dr. Gottlieb’s medical-venture capitalist career:

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration, has taken more than $400,000 from drugmakers just in the last few years, served on many corporate boards and forged countless other corporate ties while spending the last decade at a venture capital firm. [3]

Upon hearing of Gottlieb’s resignation, Biotech shares tumbled.

Source: Zero Hedge

What sort of implications does that portend? Only time will tell, depending upon how NeoDemocrats “hit squads” in Congress regard Dr. Gottlieb, a Republican.

It would seem Dr. Gottlieb has a history of being a little “too cozy” within the pharmaceutical industry and perhaps – maybe – it would be better for him to “walk quietly into the night” rather than stay on and create too messy of a revolving door policy scenario at the FDA. Thus the last line on his Wikipedia page reads:

On March 5, 2019, Gottlieb announced his resignation as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, effective in one month. [4]

References:

[1] http://www.killingmycareer.com/thesociopathicbusinessmodel/venture-capital-funding-a-fraud-case-study-venture-capital-firm-new-enterprise-associates-nea-incubator-explorameds-startups-and-johnson-johnson/
[2] http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/commissioner-of-the-food-and-drug-administration-who-is-scott-gottlieb-170424?news=860154
[3] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-a-closer-look-at-fda-commissioner-nominee-scott-gottliebs-significant-corporate-ties-2017-03-13
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Gottlieb

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.

Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.

Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008)