Denmark Vesey: Where Does The Corporation End And Government Begin?

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Where Does The Corporation End And Government Begin?

Dr. Julie Gerberding, who headed the CDC from 2002 through 2009, landed a top job with Merck, one of the largest drug companies in the world. Her job there? She's the new President of the Vaccine Division and will head up the company's $5 billion global vaccine business that includes shots to "prevent" chickenpox, cervical cancer and pneumonia.

She may be charged with reigniting flagging sales of Merck's Gardasil vaccine to prevent cervical cancer by protecting against human papillomavirus or HPV. After an encouraging launch Gardasil sales have been falling and were down 22 percent in the third quarter at $311 million.

5 comments:

Mahndisa S. Rigmaiden said...: That is an inexcusable conflict of interest. She should not have accepted the position at Merck. Just shows how many will sell their soul for a buck.; Mar 27, 2010, 7:22:00 PM
Her Side said...: Was there ever a difference between government and corporations in our lifetime? The lifetime before ours? Don't special interest groups, funded by corporations, drive the legislation supposedly "for the people, by the people? Am I a person (as defined in that equation)?; Mar 27, 2010, 9:01:00 PM
Denmark Vesey said...: "She should not have accepted the position at Merck." MR

Why not?

Why shouldn't she have accepted it?; Mar 27, 2010, 9:46:00 PM
Denmark Vesey said...: "Was there ever a difference between government and corporations in our lifetime?" HS

I don't know.

What are the consequences of a blurred distinction between corporations and government?; Mar 27, 2010, 9:47:00 PM
Denmark Vesey said...: "Don't special interest groups, funded by corporations, drive the legislation supposedly "for the people, by the people?" HS

Yes, you are right.

They do drive legislation.

So what does that tell us about these "laws" and "recommendations" from the government regarding drugs and vaccines?

Would you take a drug because Merck recommended it?

Would you take a drug because the CDC recommended it?; Mar 27, 2010, 9:50:00 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

The founders of the American state understood that the proper functioning of a democracy required an educated electorate. It is this understanding that justifies a system of public education and that led slaveholders to resist the spread of literacy among their chattels. But the meaning of "educated" has changed beyond recognition in two hundred years. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are no longer sufficient to decide on public policy. Now we need quantum mechanics and molecular biology. The knowledge required for political rationality, once available to the masses, is now in the possession of a specially educated elite, a situation that creates a series of tensions and contradictions in the operation of representative democracy.

Margaret Sanger. Woman, Morality, and Birth Control. New York: New York Publishing Company, 1922. P

Lord Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science On Society (Routledge Press: New York, 1951).

"At present the population of the world is increasing at about 58,000 per diem. War, so far, has had no very great effect on this increase, which continued throughout each of the world wars.. War has hitherto been disappointing in this respect, but perhaps bacteriological war may prove effective. If a Black Death could spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full. The state of affairs might be unpleasant, but what of it?"