![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/big-pharma.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAfter graduating from Columbia University with a chemical engineering degree, my grandfather went on to work for Pfizer for almost two decades, culminating his career as the company\u2019s Global Director of New Products.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was rather proud of this fact growing up \u2013 it felt as if this father figure, who raised me for several years during my childhood, had somehow played a role in saving lives. But in recent years, my perspective on Pfizer \u2013 and other companies in its class \u2013 has shifted. Blame it on the insidious big pharma corruption laid bare by whistleblowers in recent years. Blame it on the endless string of big pharma lawsuits revealing fraud, deception, and cover-ups. Blame it on the fact that I witnessed some of their most profitable drugs ruin the lives of those I love most. All I know is, that pride I once felt has been overshadowed by a sticky skepticism I just can\u2019t seem to shake.<\/p>\n
In 1973, my grandpa and his colleagues celebrated as Pfizer crossed a milestone: the one-billion-dollar sales mark. These days, Pfizer rakes in $81 billion a year, making it the 28th most valuable company in the world. Johnson & Johnson ranks 15th, with $93.77 billion. To put the dots into perspective, that makes said companies wealthier than most countries in the world. And thanks to those astronomical profit margins, the Pharmaceuticals and Health Products industry is able to spend more on lobbying than any other industry in America.<\/p>\n
While big pharma lobbying can take several different forms, these companies tend to target their contributions to senior legislators in Congress \u2013 you know, the ones they need to keep in their corner, because they have the power to draft healthcare laws. Pfizer has outspent its peers in six of the last eight election cycles, coughing up almost $9.7 million. During the 2016 election, pharmaceutical companies gave more than $7 million to 97 senators at an average of $75,000 per member. They also contributed $6.3 million to president Joe Biden\u2019s 2020 campaign. The question is: what did big pharma get in return?<\/p>\n
ALEC\u2019s off-the-record sway<\/strong><\/p>\n To truly grasp big pharma\u2019s power, you need to understand how The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) works. ALEC, which was founded in 1973 by conservative activists working on Ronald Reagan\u2019s campaign, is a super secretive pay-to-play operation where corporate lobbyists \u2013 including in the pharma sector \u2013 hold confidential meetings about \u201cmodel<\/em>\u201d bills. A large portion of these bills is eventually approved and become law.<\/p>\n A rundown of ALEC\u2019s greatest hits will tell you everything you need to know about the council\u2019s motives and priorities. In 1995, ALEC promoted a bill that restricts consumers\u2019 rights to sue for damages resulting from taking a particular medication. They also endorsed the Statute of Limitation Reduction Act<\/em>, which put a time limit on when someone could sue after a medication-induced injury or death. Over the years, ALEC has promoted many other pharma-friendly bills that would: weaken FDA oversight of new drugs and therapies, limit FDA authority over drug advertising, and oppose regulations on financial incentives for doctors to prescribe specific drugs.<\/p>\n But what makes these ALEC collaborations feel particularly problematic is that there\u2019s little transparency \u2013 all of this occurs behind closed doors. Congressional leaders and other committee members involved in ALEC aren\u2019t required to publish any records of their meetings and other communications with pharma lobbyists, and the roster of ALEC members is completely confidential. All we know is that in 2020, more than two-thirds of Congress \u2013 72 senators and 302 House of Representatives members \u2013 cashed a campaign check from a pharma company.<\/p>\n Big Pharma funding research<\/strong><\/p>\n The public typically relies on an endorsement from government agencies to help them decide whether or not a new drug, vaccine, or medical device is safe and effective. And those agencies, like the FDA, count on clinical research. As already established, big pharma is notorious for getting its hooks into influential government officials. Here\u2019s another sobering truth: the majority of scientific research is paid for by the pharmaceutical companies.<\/p>\n When the New England Journal of Medicine<\/em> (NEJM<\/em>) published 73 studies of new drugs over the course of a single year, they found that a staggering 82% of them had been funded by the pharmaceutical company selling the product, 68% had authors who were employees of that company, and 50% had lead researchers who accepted money from a drug company.<\/p>\n According to 2013 research conducted at the University of Arizona, College of Law, even when pharma companies aren\u2019t directly funding the research, company stockholders, consultants, directors, and officers are almost always involved in conducting them. A 2017 report by the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal<\/em> (BMJ<\/em>) also showed that about half of medical journal editors receive payments from drug companies, with the average payment per editor hovering around $28,000. But these statistics are only accurate if researchers and editors are transparent about payments from pharma. And a 2022 investigative analysis of two of the most influential medical journals found that 81% of study authors failed to disclose millions in payments from drug companies, as they\u2019re required to do.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, this trend shows no sign of slowing down. The number of clinical trials funded by the pharmaceutical industry has been climbing every year since 2006, according to a John Hopkins University report, while independent studies have been harder to find.<\/p>\n And there are some serious consequences to these conflicts of interest. Take Avandia<\/em>, for instance, a diabetes drug produced by GlaxoSmithCline (GSK). Avandia<\/em> was eventually linked to a dramatically increased risk of heart attacks and heart failure. And a BMJ<\/em> report revealed that almost 90% of scientists who initially wrote glowing articles about Avandia<\/em> had financial ties to GSK.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the unnerving part: if the pharmaceutical industry is successfully biasing the science, then that means the physicians who rely on the science are biased in their prescribing decisions.<\/p>\n Where the lines get really blurry is with \u201cghostwriting<\/em>.\u201d Big pharma execs know citizens are way more likely to trust a report written by a board-certified doctor than one of their representatives. That\u2019s why they pay physicians to list their names as authors \u2013 even though the MDs had little to no involvement in the research, and the report was actually written by the drug company. This practice started in the \u201950s and \u201960s when tobacco execs were clamoring to prove that cigarettes didn\u2019t cause cancer (spoiler alert: they do!), so they commissioned doctors to slap their name on papers undermining the risks of smoking.<\/p>\n It\u2019s still a pretty common tactic today: more than one in 10 articles published in the NEJM<\/em> was co-written by a ghostwriter. While a very small percentage of medical journals have clear policies against ghostwriting, it\u2019s still technically legal \u2013despite the fact that the consequences can be deadly.<\/p>\n Case in point: in the late \u201990s and early 2000s, Merck paid for 73 ghostwritten articles to play up the benefits of its arthritis drug Vioxx<\/em>. It was later revealed that Merck failed to report all of the heart attacks experienced by trial participants. In fact, a study published in the NEJM<\/em> revealed that an estimated 160,000 Americans experienced heart attacks or strokes from taking Vioxx<\/em>. That research was conducted by Dr. David Graham, Associate Director of the FDA\u2019s Office of Drug Safety, who understandably concluded the drug was not safe. But the FDA\u2019s Office of New Drugs, which not only was responsible for initially approving Vioxx<\/em> but also regulating it, pursued to sweep his findings under the rug.<\/p>\n \u201cI was pressured to change my conclusions and recommendations, and basically threatened that if I did not change them, I would not be permitted to present the paper at the conference<\/em>,\u201d he wrote in his 2004 U.S. Senate testimony on Vioxx<\/em>. \u201cOne Drug Safety manager recommended that I should be barred from presenting the poster at the meeting<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, the FDA issued a public health advisory about Vioxx<\/em> and Merck withdrew this product. But it was a little late for repercussions \u2013 38,000 of those Vioxx<\/em>-takers who suffered heart attacks had already died. Graham called this a \u201cprofound regulatory failure<\/em>,\u201d adding that scientific standards the FDA apply to drug safety \u201cguarantee that unsafe and deadly drugs will remain on the U.S. market<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n This should come as no surprise, but research has also repeatedly shown that a paper written by a pharmaceutical company is more likely to emphasize the benefits of a drug, vaccine, or device while downplaying the dangers. Because of this practice, a former ghostwriter outlined all the ethical reasons why she quit this job, in a PLOS Medicine<\/em> report. While adverse drug effects appear in 95% of clinical research, only 46% of published reports disclose them. Of course, all of this often ends up misleading doctors into thinking a drug is safer than it actually is.<\/p>\n Big Pharma influence on doctors<\/strong><\/p>\n Pharmaceutical companies aren\u2019t just paying medical journal editors and authors to make their products look good, either. There\u2019s a long, sordid history of pharmaceutical companies incentivizing doctors to prescribe their products through financial rewards.<\/p>\n For instance, Pfizer and AstraZeneca doled out a combined $100 million to doctors in 2018, with some earning anywhere from $6 million to $29 million in a year. And research has shown this strategy works: when doctors accept these gifts and payments, they\u2019re significantly more likely to prescribe those companies\u2019 drugs.<\/p>\n Novartis comes too \u2013 the company famously spent over $100 million paying for doctors\u2019 extravagant meals, golf outings, and more, all while also providing a generous kickback program that made them richer every time they prescribed certain blood pressure and diabetes meds.<\/p>\n Side note: the Open Payments<\/em> portal, in US, contains a nifty little database where you can find out if any of your own doctors, if you live in America, received money from drug companies. Knowing that my mother was put on a laundry list of meds after a near-fatal car accident, I was curious \u2013 so I did a quick search for her providers. While her PCP only banked a modest amount from Pfizer and AstraZeneca, her previous psychiatrist \u2013 who prescribed a cocktail of contraindicated medications without treating her in person \u2013 collected quadruple-digit payments from pharmaceutical companies. And her pain care specialist, who prescribed her jaw-dropping doses of opioid pain medication for more than 20 years (far longer than the 5-day safety guideline), was raking in thousands from Purdue Pharma, aka the opioid crisis\u2019 kingpin.<\/p>\n Purdue is now infamous for its wildly aggressive OxyContin<\/em> campaign in the \u201990s. At the time, the company billed it as a non-addictive wonder drug for pain sufferers. Internal emails show Pursue sales representatives were instructed to \u201csell, sell, sell<\/em>\u201d OxyContin<\/em>, and the more they were able to push, the more they were rewarded with promotions and bonuses. With the stakes so high, these reps stopped at nothing to get doctors on board \u2013 even going so far as to send boxes of doughnuts spelling out \u201cOxyContin<\/em>\u201d to unconvinced physicians. Purdue had stumbled upon the perfect system for generating tons of profit \u2013 off of other people\u2019s pain.<\/p>\n Documentation later proved that not only was Purdue aware it was highly addictive and that many people were abusing it, but that they also encouraged doctors to continue prescribing increasingly higher doses of it (and sent them on lavish luxury vacations for some motivation). In testimony to Congress, Purdue exec Paul Goldenheim played dumb about OxyContin<\/em> addiction and overdose rates, but emails that were later exposed showed that he requested his colleagues remove all mentions of addiction from their correspondence about the drug. Even after it was proven in court that Purdue fraudulently marketed OxyContin<\/em> while concealing its addictive nature, no one from the company spent a single day behind bars. Instead, the company got a slap on the wrist and a $600 million fine for a misdemeanor, the equivalent of a speeding ticket compared to the $9 billion they made off OxyContin<\/em> up until 2006. Meanwhile, thanks to Purdue\u2019s recklessness, more than 247,000 people died from prescription opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2009. And that\u2019s not even factoring in all the people who died of heroin overdoses once OxyContin<\/em> was no longer attainable to them. The NIH reports that 80% of people who use heroin started by misusing prescription opioids.<\/p>\n Former sales rep Carol Panara told me in an interview that when she looks back on her time at Purdue, it all feels like a \u201cbad dream<\/em>.\u201d Panara started working for Purdue in 2008, one year after the company pled guilty to \u201cmisbranding<\/em>\u201d charges for OxyContin<\/em>. At this point, Purdue was \u201cregrouping and expanding<\/em>,\u201d says Panara, and to that end, had developed a clever new approach for making money off OxyContin<\/em>: sales reps were now targeting general practitioners and family doctors, rather than just pain management specialists. On top of that, Purdue soon introduced three new strengths for OxyContin<\/em>: 15, 30, and 60 milligrams, creating smaller increments Panara believes were aimed at making doctors feel more comfortable increasing their patients\u2019 dosages. According to Panara, there were internal company rankings for sales reps based on the number of prescriptions for each OxyContin<\/em> dosing strength in their territory.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were sneaky about it<\/em>,\u201d she said. \u201cTheir plan was to go in and sell these doctors on the idea of starting with 10 milligrams, which is very low, knowing full well that once they get started down that path<\/em> \u2013 that\u2019s all they need. Because eventually, they\u2019re going to build a tolerance and need a higher dose<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Occasionally, doctors expressed concerns about a patient becoming addicted, but Purdue had already developed a way around that. Sales reps like Panara were taught to reassure those doctors that someone in pain might experience addiction-like symptoms called \u201cpseudoaddiction<\/em>,\u201d but that didn\u2019t mean they were truly addicted. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to support that this concept is legit, of course. But the most disturbing part was that reps were trained to tell doctors that \u201cpseudoaddiction<\/em>\u201d signaled the patient\u2019s pain wasn\u2019t being managed well enough, and the solution was simply to prescribe a higher dose of OxyContin<\/em>.<\/p>\n Panara finally quit Purdue in 2013. One of the breaking points was when two pharmacies in her territory were robbed at gunpoint specifically for OxyContin<\/em>. In 2020, Purdue pled guilty to three criminal charges in an $8.3 billion deal, but the company is now under court protection after filing for bankruptcy. Despite all the damage that\u2019s been done, the FDA\u2019s policies for approving opioids remain essentially unchanged.<\/p>\n Purdue probably wouldn\u2019t have been able to pull this off if it weren\u2019t for an FDA examiner named Curtis Wright, and his assistant Douglas Kramer. While Purdue was pursuing Wright\u2019s stamp of approval on OxyContin<\/em>, Wright took an outright sketchy approach to their application, instructing the company to mail documents to his home office rather than the FDA, and enlisting Purdue employees to help him review trials about the safety of the drug. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act<\/em> requires that the FDA have access to at least two randomized controlled trials before deeming a drug as safe and effective, but in the case of OxyContin<\/em>, it got approved with data from just one measly two-week study \u2013 in osteoarthritis patients, no less.<\/p>\n When both Wright and Kramer left the FDA, they went on to work for none other than (drumroll, please) Purdue, with Wright earning three times his FDA salary. By the way \u2013 this is just one example of the FDA\u2019s notoriously incestuous relationship with big pharma, often referred to as \u201cthe revolving door<\/em>\u201d. In fact, a 2018 Science<\/em> report revealed that 11 out of 16 FDA reviewers ended up at the same companies they had been regulating products for.<\/p>\n While doing an independent investigation, \u201cEmpire of Pain<\/em>\u201d author and New Yorker<\/em> columnist Patrick Radden Keefe aimed to gain access to documentation of Wright\u2019s communications with Purdue during the OxyContin<\/em> approval process.<\/p>\n \u201cThe FDA came back and said, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s weird, but we don\u2019t have anything. It\u2019s all either been lost or destroyed<\/em>\u2019,\u201d Keefe told Fortune<\/em> in an interview. \u201cBut it\u2019s not just the FDA. It\u2019s Congress, it\u2019s the Department of Justice, it\u2019s big parts of the medical establishment, the sheer amount of money involved, I think, has meant that a lot of the checks that should be in place in society to not just achieve justice, but also to protect us as consumers, were not there because they had been co-opted<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Big pharma may be to blame for creating the opioids that caused this public health catastrophe, but the FDA deserves just as much scrutiny \u2013 because its countless failures also played a part in enabling it. And many of those more recent fails occurred under the supervision of Dr. Janet Woodcock. Woodcock was named FDA\u2019s acting commissioner mere hours after Joe Biden was inaugurated as president. She would have been a logical choice, being an FDA vet of 35 years, but then again it\u2019s impossible to forget that she played a starring role in the FDA\u2019s perpetuating the opioid epidemic. She\u2019s also known for overruling her own scientific advisors when they vote against approving a drug.<\/p>\n Not only did Woodcock approve OxyContin<\/em> for children as young as 11 years old, but she also gave the green light to several other highly controversial extended-release opioid pain drugs without sufficient evidence of safety or efficacy. One of those was Zohydro<\/em>: in 2011, the FDA\u2019s advisory committee voted 11:2 against approving it due to safety concerns about inappropriate use, but Woodcock went ahead and pushed it through, anyway. Under Woodcock\u2019s supervision, the FDA also approved Opana<\/em>, which is twice as powerful as OxyContin<\/em> \u2013 only to then beg the drug maker to take it off the market 10 years later due to \u201cabuse and manipulation<\/em>.\u201d And then there was Dsuvia<\/em>, a potent painkiller 1,000 times stronger than morphine and 10 times more powerful than fentanyl. According to a head of one of the FDA\u2019s advisory committees, the U.S. military had helped to develop this particular drug, and Woodcock said there was \u201cpressure from the Pentagon<\/em>\u201d to push it through approvals. The FBI, members of Congress, public health advocates, and patient safety experts alike called this decision into question, pointing out that with hundreds of opioids already on the market there\u2019s no need for another \u2013 particularly one that comes with such high risks. Most recently, Woodcock served as the therapeutics lead for Operation Warp Speed<\/em>, overseeing Covid-19 vaccine development.<\/p>\n Big Pharma lawsuits, scandals, and cover-ups<\/strong><\/p>\n While the OxyContin<\/em> craze is undoubtedly one of the highest-profile examples of big pharma\u2019s deception, there are dozens of other stories like this. Here are a few standouts:<\/p>\n In the 1980s, Bayer continued selling blood clotting products to third-world countries even though they were fully aware those products had been contaminated with HIV. The reason? The \u201cfinancial investment in the product was considered too high to destroy the inventory<\/em>.\u201d Predictably, about 20,000 of the hemophiliacs who were infused with these tainted products then tested positive for HIV and eventually developed AIDS, and many later died of it.<\/p>\n In 2004, Johnson & Johnson was slapped with a series of lawsuits for illegally promoting off-label use of their heartburn drug Propulsid<\/em> for children despite internal company emails confirming major safety concerns (as in, deaths during the drug trials). Documentation from the lawsuits showed that dozens of studies sponsored by Johnson & Johnson highlighting the risks of this drug were never published.<\/p>\n The FDA estimates that GSK\u2019s Avandia<\/em> caused 83,000 heart attacks between 1999 and 2007. Internal documents from GSK prove that when they began studying the effects of the drug as early as 1999, they discovered it caused a higher risk of heart attacks than a similar drug it was meant to replace. Rather than publish these findings, they spent a decade illegally concealing them (and meanwhile, banking $3.2 billion annually for this drug by 2006). Finally, a 2007 New England Journal of Medicine<\/em> study linked Avandia<\/em> to a 43% increased risk of heart attacks, and a 64% increased risk of death from heart disease. Avandia<\/em> is still FDA approved and available in the U.S.<\/p>\n In 2009, Pfizer was forced to pay $2.3 billion, the largest healthcare fraud settlement in history at that time, for paying illegal kickbacks to doctors and promoting off-label uses of its drugs. Specifically, a former employee revealed that Pfizer reps were encouraged and incentivized to sell Bextra<\/em> and 12 other drugs for conditions they were never FDA approved for, and at doses up to eight times what\u2019s recommended. \u201cI was expected to increase profits at all costs, even when sales meant endangering lives<\/em>,\u201d the whistleblower said.<\/p>\n When it was discovered that AstraZeneca was promoting the antipsychotic medication Seroquel<\/em> for uses that were not approved by the FDA as safe and effective, the company was hit with a $520 million fine in 2010. For years, AstraZeneca had been encouraging psychiatrists and other physicians to prescribe Seroquel<\/em> for a vast range of seemingly unrelated off-label conditions, including Alzheimer\u2019s disease, anger management, ADHD, dementia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and sleeplessness. AstraZeneca also violated the federal Anti-Kickback Statute<\/em> by paying doctors to spread the word about these unapproved uses of Seroquel<\/em> via promotional lectures and while traveling to resort locations.<\/p>\n In 2012, GSK paid a $3 billion fine for bribing doctors by flying them and their spouses to five-star resorts, and for illegally promoting drugs for off-label uses. What\u2019s worse \u2013 GSK withheld clinical trial results that showed its antidepressant Paxil<\/em> not only doesn\u2019t work for adolescents and children but more alarmingly, that it can increase the likelihood of suicidal thoughts in this group. A 1998 GSK internal memo revealed that the company intentionally concealed this data to minimize any \u201cpotential negative commercial impact<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2021, an ex-AstraZeneca sales rep sued her former employer, claiming they fired her for refusing to promote drugs for uses that weren\u2019t FDA-approved. The employee alleges that on multiple occasions, she expressed concerns to her boss about \u201cmisleading<\/em>\u201d information that didn\u2019t have enough support from medical research, and off-label promotions of certain drugs. Her supervisor reportedly not only ignored these concerns but pressured her to approve statements she didn\u2019t agree with and threatened to remove her from regional and national positions if she didn\u2019t comply. According to the plaintiff, she missed out on a raise and a bonus because she refused to break the law.<\/p>\n At the top of 2022, a panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit against Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, and GE Healthcare, which claims they helped finance terrorist attacks against U.S. service members and other Americans in Iraq. The suit alleges that from 2005\u20132011, these companies regularly offered bribes (including free drugs and medical devices) totaling millions of dollars annually to Iraq\u2019s Ministry of Health in order to secure drug contracts. These corrupt payments then allegedly funded weapons and training for the Mahdi Army, which until 2008, was largely considered one of the most dangerous groups in Iraq.<\/p>\n Another especially worrisome factor is that pharmaceutical companies are conducting an ever-increasing number of clinical trials in third-world countries, where people may be less educated, and there are also far fewer safety regulations. Pfizer\u2019s 1996 experimental trials with Trovan<\/em> on Nigerian children with meningitis \u2013 without informed consent \u2013 is just one nauseating example. When a former medical director in Pfizer\u2019s central research division warned the company both before and after the study that their methods in this trial were \u201cimproper and unsafe<\/em>,\u201d he was promptly fired. Families of the Nigerian children who died or were left blind, brain damaged, or paralyzed after the study sued Pfizer, and the company ultimately settled out of court. In 1998, the FDA approved Trovan<\/em> only for adults. The drug was later banned from European markets due to reports of fatal liver disease and restricted to strictly emergency care in the U.S. Pfizer still denies any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n But all that is just the tip of the iceberg. If you\u2019d like to dive a little further down the rabbit hole \u2013 and I\u2019ll warn you, it\u2019s a deep one \u2013 a quick Google search for \u201cbig pharma lawsuits<\/em>\u201d will reveal the industry\u2019s dark track record of bribery, dishonesty, and fraud.<\/p>\n In fact, big pharma occurs to be the biggest defrauder of the federal government when it comes to the False Claims Act<\/em>, otherwise known as the \u201cLincoln Law<\/em>.\u201d During our interview, Panara told me she has friends still working for big pharma who would be willing to speak out about crooked activity they\u2019ve observed, but are too afraid of being blacklisted by the industry.<\/p>\n A newly proposed update to the False Claims Act<\/em> would help to protect and support whistleblowers in their efforts to hold pharmaceutical companies liable, by helping to prevent that kind of retaliation and making it harder for the companies charged to dismiss these cases. It should come as no surprise that Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, and a flock of other big pharma firms are currently lobbying to block the update. Naturally, they wouldn\u2019t want to make it any easier for ex-employees to expose their wrongdoings, potentially costing them billions more in fines.<\/p>\n Something to remember: these are the same people who produced, marketed, and are profiting from the Covid-19 vaccines. The same people who manipulate research, pay off decision-makers to push their drugs, cover up negative research results to avoid financial losses, and knowingly put innocent citizens in harm\u2019s way. The same people who told America: \u201cTake as much OxyContin as you want around the clock! It\u2019s very safe and not addictive!<\/em>\u201d (while laughing all the way to the bank).<\/p>\n So, ask yourself this: if a partner, friend, or family member repeatedly lied to you \u2013 and not just little white lies, but big ones that put your health and safety at risk \u2013 would you continue to trust them?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/corrupt-doctor-e1663964245559.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/corrupt-congress-e1663964224458.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/oxycontin-e1663964450185.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/opiod-e1663964274386.jpg\")
<\/p>\n