The head of the Food and Drug
Administration, Marty Makary, “resigned” in May, 2026 even though the decision had
been made by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy “and then
the White House signed off on it.”[1]
Although Makary had been annoyance to drug-company executives, and to that
extent his removal was due to pressure on President Trump by the CEOs, his “resignation”
supports the theory of regulatory capture, wherein the regulated companies
control the very regulatory agencies (and regulators therein) that regulate
those companies, this case shows that it is possible for an industry’s
interests to be aligned with the public (health) interest. Does the alignment
regarding getting rid of a particular regulator lessen the unethical quality of
the broader conflict of interest between business and government?
On July 7, 2020, NBC News reported that Arizona had a record
number of cases (105,094) and of deaths (1,927), with a four percent daily
increase in reported cases. Also, coronavirus hospitalizations and related
ventilators being used were also at record highs. A reporter with MSNBC stated,
“Arizona is in crisis.” On the previous day, on MSNBC television, that same
reporter had said, “Arizona is in free fall,” in that the number of cases was
rising so fast. It had taken three months for the first 50,000 cases and only
23 days for the next 50,000. Observing that people were not wearing masks in
downtown Scottsdale, he reported that “Arizona is out of control.” People there
were not taking precautions, and the local and state authorities were not on
top of the crisis. On June 22, 2020, a physician with the University of
Arizona-Phoenix interviewed on The 11th Hour show on MSNBC asserted
that the Arizonans who were saying, “No one is going to order me to wear a
mask,” were being selfish because refusing to wear a mask, say on a bus or in a
store or restaurant/bar puts other lives at risk. Also a salient ingredient of
the crisis in Arizona was the anti-science contingent of the population. In an
interview at the time, Alan Alda (of the TV show, MASH) pointed to “pockets of
people who still think science is just another opinion” as having a mindset
that “puts us all in danger.”[1]
The rigors of scientific experiment, such as the use of control groups and
random selection, render science closer to knowledge than are mere opinions
based on ideology and a person’s own experience. Privileging one’s own ideology
and experiences counts as self-embellishing, and perhaps even self-idolatry.
Such people are not likely to accept knowledge that contradicts their
respective opinions and experience. Living in Phoenix at the time, I had
encountered a lot of anti-intellectualism and incompetence along with refusals
to enforce virus-deterring policies and even laws. Just one year earlier,
Arizona’s education system through High School (K-12) had been rated as 49 out of the 50 States, but this does not explain the sordid attitude that is
pervasive there.
Government ownership and control of a means of production is the standard definition of socialismeven if some linguistic revisionists want to redefine the term as merely the control of a business or industry. In short, a government must own the economic enterprises to meet the definition of Socialism rather than merely government regulation of private businesses. Socialism, I contend, involves a structural conflict of interest that a government that both owns an controls an enterprise, industry or even an entire economy may be tempted to exploit for its own ends rather than the public good. The key here is the regulating of that which is owned. Specifically, where a government as owner enjoys the benefit of profit or surplus, that government has a financial interest that can be against the restriction of the produced product. Such a monopolistic restriction could admittedly be warranted by public health or safety, but the gain could also be private in the sense that it is limited to the government and even the personal financial interests of government officials. In other words, the public good can be distinct from a government’s own financial (and related political) interest even as that government is charged with acting in the public interest in part by owning and regulating state enterprises. It is the pivot between the public and private interest that sets up the conflict of interest because the human urge is to go with a narrower, private interest at the expense of the public good. In other words, the very possibility, even likelihood given human nature, that a government would exploit the wider distribution of benefits for the narrower one (i.e., to the government itself) is the basis of a conflict of interest. I argue elsewhere that even the mere possibility renders even an as-yet unexploited conflict of interest inherently unethical. Here, I examine the matter of public health in China as a case of a socialist (in part) government that has had a conflict of interest.
Newt Gingrich said on May 15, 2011 that people should be required to buy health-insurance. He added that he would like to see the mandate implemented at the state rather than the federal level. These comments unleashed a torrent of criticism from Republicans, so the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives spent the following week “walking” his comments back by denying that he had said that he was for a mandate.The media was in a feeding frenzy, astounded that the former Speaker could simply deny that he might get away with the contradiction. However, in such cases, is it the person or logical contradiction itself that gets us so steamed?
As the citizens as well as legislators of Colorado were no
doubt marveling in astonishment at the seismic $5 million figure for just the
first week of legalized marijuana sales, Alaska Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell received
a petition to legalize recreational use. With over 45,000 signatures, of which
only 30,169 are sufficient, the petition correlates with polls in early 2013
revealing that 54 percent of voters support the legalization.[1]
As with many other governmental matters, the devil is in the details.
Already,
the legislative proposal would levy a $50 tax on each ounce of pot sold. Just imagine if such a tax were levied on
each ounce of alcohol sold! Alaska
lawmakers may have insisted on the exorbitant tax as part of the proposal from a
desire to bilk the consumers as if they were a golden egg (or bowl), or to
discourage them on moral or public health grounds from ingesting the particular
product. The “crowding out” effect on State taxing power due to more and more
federal taxation was certainly a political force behind the support of
legislatures in Colorado, Washington, and Alaska starved for revenue.
Yet
the hypocrisy practically leaps off the page in Bill Parker’s statement that
marijuana is “a substance objectively less harmful than alcohol.”[2]
Parker had been a legislator and the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner. Similar
hypocrisy infects the comparison with tobacco, in that at least one study in
2012 reports that moderate pot recreational use does not harm the lungs whereas
cigarette use does.[3] So
the proposal’s prohibition of pot-smoking in public (as already was the case in
Colorado) is at the very least irrational, if not reefer madness unplugged. Even
the restrictions on drinking alcohol in public may be excessively paranoid, given the passing of the religious taboo against alcohol.
Nevertheless,
the proposed prohibition on public smoking of marijuana (without a
corresponding ban on tobacco use in outdoor public places on account of the
danger posed by second-hand smoke) did not stop Tim Hinterberger, one of the proposal's principal sponsors and
a professor of developmental biology at the University of Alaska in Anchorage,
from accepting the proposed system of “sensible regulation,” not to mention
taxation.[4]
“Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and sensible
regulation will bolster Alaska’s economy by creating jobs and generating
revenue for the state." The professor cheers the end of the black market
in pot without realizing that the proposed $50 tax per ounce would keep the underground
alive.
Generally speaking, the highest tax rate does not necessarily proffer
the most tax revenue. One could even say that the more greedy and unreasonable
a sales tax, the more the underground market can be expected to thrive. Once unleashed, freedom naturally finds its own way home.
In
short, it would seem that irrational exuberance is not limited to Wall Street.
Perhaps the real question is why human beings have so much trouble getting over
not only prejudice and moralizing, but also overreacting to the unknown. It is
as if legislators and regulators assume that regulations cannot be added if
needed as unforeseen dangers are uncovered or encountered. The sheer rigidity
and overreaction as evinced in the regulation of the recreational use of pot
may even point to a subterranean fault in the American psyche. Perhaps at least
some of the widespread pot use stems from the natural frustration in being repeatedly
slapped in the face by a hypertrophic fear of change and the supporting
pathological ignorance that can’t be wrong and presumes itself as fully
justified in snatching whatever authority it has.
[i]
Hunter Stuart, “Marijuana in Alaska Gets One Step Closer to Full Legalization,”
The Huffington Post, January 8, 2014.
With regard to genetically-modified (GM) foodstuffs, an interesting
cultural difference between Americans and Europeans surfaces. Even though both
peoples are fully capable of over-reacting to a presumed danger, what they
select and how they react differently can be instructive, culturally speaking.
In 2012, Congress lost sight of the
fundamental purpose of a safety net, extending it beyond the difference between
life and death. By zeroing in on the purpose of a safety net, Congress can both
save money and better provide for the survival of those who are not providing
it for themselves. Of such people, where survival itself is at stake, questions
of being deserving pale in comparison to society’s obligation to fend off
starvation, sickness and homelessness. Ironically, by extending the safety net
beyond survival, Congress has undercut its role in providing for its citizens’
survival.
Hospitals in Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas (among others), stopped hiring smokers in 2010 and more countries were openly considering doing so. Paul Terpeluk, a director at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, said, “The trend line is getting pretty steep, and I’d guess that in the next few years you’d see a lot of major hospitals go this way.”[1] Indeed, this could come to be the case around the world. Various factors impact any comprehensive evaluation of a hospitals' policy against hiring smokers. The matter is therefore more complex than one might assume at first glance.
