European Medicines Agency essentially a lobbying outfit for Big Pharma

MP Gerald Hauser FPÖ noted that the European Medicines Agency is responsible for monitoring and evaluating medicines in the EU, and is also responsible for their approval.

Before there was even any discussion about vaccinations and the approval of vaccinations, a certain Dr. Emer Cooke was appointed on November 16 2020 as the chairwoman of the EMA, responsible for a budget in 2020 of approximately €306 million.

The review process of the European Medicines Agency regarding medical issues has been criticized for its lack of transparency and issues of conflict of interest. In a rebuttal of an EMS review that included her work, Louise Brinth, a Danish physician, noted that “experts” reviewing data remain unnamed and seem to be bound to secrecy. Minutes are not released and diverging opinions are not reported suggesting that all the “experts” are of the same opinion. In her view the process is unscientific and undemocratic.

The Agency decentralises its scientific assessment of medicines by working through a network of about 4500 “experts”. One these “experts” is Lynora Saxinger. According to her Twitter profile, she “offers informed Covid-19 opinions in media”.

“Any one who has a history of blood clots might have an increased risk of blood clots at any point anyway,” Saxinger, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, declared in a recent CBC News interview on the safety regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine.” But I don’t believe that there would be a rationale to make a recommendation against using [the vaccine],” she added.

This may present a huge conflict of interest because “91 percent of this [EMA] budget comes from fees paid by the pharmaceutical companies,” Hauser pointed out. “And if you now look at the CV of Dr. Emer Cooke, since 1985 she has been working in various positions in the pharmaceutical industry. It is interesting to note that from 1991 to 1998 she was a director of the FBA.”

The FBA happens to be the lobbying organisation for the largest European Pharmaceutical Conglomerates. Cooke lobbied for eight years for the Big 30 of the European Pharmaceutical Industry.

“Her clients were Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Novatis, Johnson and Johnson, and so on and so forth,” according to Hauser. “So, this Dr. Emer Cooke, who was appointed in mid-November of 2020 to the EMA board has, all her life, worked for the pharma industry. She has lobbied in an executive capacity for the pharma industry and is now responsible for the approval and for the control and the efficacy of vaccines like AstraZeneca“.

Hauser believes that this is a prime example of “outright insider deals, outright nepotism [and] bribery”. He added: “Please think about this when in future you use the EMA as proof of the correctness of the testing of medical drugs.”