Pfizer and Allergan have announced their plans for a $160 billion mega-merger. The driving force behind this move by Pfizer is to simply avoid taxes…lots of them.
The merger allows Pfizer to relocate its headquarters to Ireland, where Allergan is incorporated and the tax rate for corporations is 12.5% — less than the US rate of 39.2%. For Pfizer, it means taxes will go as low as 17%. So using Pfizer’s 2014 financial report earnings, they would now be paying $8,432,000,000 in taxes instead of $19,344,000,000. Make no mistake, Pfizer isn’t the first corporation and unfortunately won’t be the last to seek tax havens, exploit loopholes, and hide profits overseas. Yet, the reality is, moves like Pfizer’s work to undermine the tax systems supporting social safety nets like the federal food stamps program. Beginning in November 2013, spending on federal food stamps was automatically cut by $5 billion effecting over 45 million Americans. Pfizer’s Irish tax haven would have taken $10 billion from the total used to fund such programs. Now add in all the other companies that are gaming the system.
To no one’s surprise, The White House said that it didn’t have a comment on the deal specifically. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders commented on the merger by saying "The Obama administration has the authority to stop this merger, and it should exercise that authority.” While Candidate Donald Trump said “The fact that Pfizer is leaving our country with a tremendous loss of jobs is disgusting. Our politicians should be ashamed.” However, political rhetoric rarely ever stops corporate power moves when big money is on the line. This media-ignored fact applies doubly when the unethical or illegal moves are done by the world’s second largest drug and biotech company in 2015 according to Forbes.
Pfizer’s CEO Ian Reed had plenty to say as he boasted to CNBC's Meg Tirrell “This is a great deal for America.” Note that CNBC and other mainstream media outlets reportedly receive 70 percent of their ad revenue from pharmaceutical companies during non-election years according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s investigation. Reed’s vague statement was eerily similar to Al Gore saying “This is a good deal for our country” while selling the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing and jobs through NAFTA in 1993 on Larry King Live.
The movie plays on in the background as journalists do their best to describe it; or hide it. Pfizer has gobbled up many other drug companies in its pursuit for pharmaceutical dominance. A quick look back into Pfizer’s history shows a long line of notable crimes and environmental atrocities. While presidential candidates rush to get their media sound byte on record with statements condoning the Pfizer-tax dodging-merger, it is what they are not spotlighting that is even more troubling. The company’s total public fines and criminal penalties to date are as follows:
“Prosecutors said that excluding Pfizer [from Medicare and Medicaid] would most likely lead to Pfizer's collapse, with collateral consequences: disrupting the flow of Pfizer products to Medicare and Medicaid recipients, causing the loss of jobs including those of Pfizer employees who were not involved in the fraud, and causing significant losses for Pfizer shareholders.
"We have to ask whether by excluding the company [from Medicare and Medicaid], are we harming our patients," said Lewis Morris of the Department of Health and Human Services.”
In other words, justice, abiding by the law, and free market competition would cause Pfizer to collapse.
The peer reviewed studies of the past that led to the approval of questionable pharmaceutical drugs are showing their fallibility. Drug companies rely solely on peer reviewed research to test the safety of their products before public rollout. Widely reported in May of 2015, Richard Smith, who edited the British Medical Journal for more than a decade, said there was no evidence that peer review was a good method of detecting errors and claimed that “most of what is published in journals is just plain wrong or nonsense”. Smith went further to say “If peer review was a drug it would never get on the market because we have lots of evidence of its adverse effects and don’t have evidence of its benefit…It’s time to slaughter the sacred cow.” The public appears to be witnessing a slow motion admittance of continuous criminal research fraud.
It is vitally important to begin empowering yourself and loved ones in order to avoid contact with highly unethical, immoral, and criminal drug companies. By taking back the power to heal naturally, exposure to these companies and their products side effects can be minimized. Many questionable pharmaceutical products have, unpatentable, counterparts mirrored naturally occurring in the plant, herb, and fungi kingdoms. Alternative methods and natural health is exploding in popularity for good reason…because it works!
The merger allows Pfizer to relocate its headquarters to Ireland, where Allergan is incorporated and the tax rate for corporations is 12.5% — less than the US rate of 39.2%. For Pfizer, it means taxes will go as low as 17%. So using Pfizer’s 2014 financial report earnings, they would now be paying $8,432,000,000 in taxes instead of $19,344,000,000. Make no mistake, Pfizer isn’t the first corporation and unfortunately won’t be the last to seek tax havens, exploit loopholes, and hide profits overseas. Yet, the reality is, moves like Pfizer’s work to undermine the tax systems supporting social safety nets like the federal food stamps program. Beginning in November 2013, spending on federal food stamps was automatically cut by $5 billion effecting over 45 million Americans. Pfizer’s Irish tax haven would have taken $10 billion from the total used to fund such programs. Now add in all the other companies that are gaming the system.
To no one’s surprise, The White House said that it didn’t have a comment on the deal specifically. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders commented on the merger by saying "The Obama administration has the authority to stop this merger, and it should exercise that authority.” While Candidate Donald Trump said “The fact that Pfizer is leaving our country with a tremendous loss of jobs is disgusting. Our politicians should be ashamed.” However, political rhetoric rarely ever stops corporate power moves when big money is on the line. This media-ignored fact applies doubly when the unethical or illegal moves are done by the world’s second largest drug and biotech company in 2015 according to Forbes.
Pfizer’s CEO Ian Reed had plenty to say as he boasted to CNBC's Meg Tirrell “This is a great deal for America.” Note that CNBC and other mainstream media outlets reportedly receive 70 percent of their ad revenue from pharmaceutical companies during non-election years according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s investigation. Reed’s vague statement was eerily similar to Al Gore saying “This is a good deal for our country” while selling the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing and jobs through NAFTA in 1993 on Larry King Live.
The movie plays on in the background as journalists do their best to describe it; or hide it. Pfizer has gobbled up many other drug companies in its pursuit for pharmaceutical dominance. A quick look back into Pfizer’s history shows a long line of notable crimes and environmental atrocities. While presidential candidates rush to get their media sound byte on record with statements condoning the Pfizer-tax dodging-merger, it is what they are not spotlighting that is even more troubling. The company’s total public fines and criminal penalties to date are as follows:
- $706,806,750 paid for environmental violations and penalties
- $1,178,700,000 paid in lawsuits and criminal penalties from product safety
- $2,300,000,000 paid in one case for civil and criminal charges over illegally marketing a painkiller that was taken off the shelves because of safety concerns.
“Prosecutors said that excluding Pfizer [from Medicare and Medicaid] would most likely lead to Pfizer's collapse, with collateral consequences: disrupting the flow of Pfizer products to Medicare and Medicaid recipients, causing the loss of jobs including those of Pfizer employees who were not involved in the fraud, and causing significant losses for Pfizer shareholders.
"We have to ask whether by excluding the company [from Medicare and Medicaid], are we harming our patients," said Lewis Morris of the Department of Health and Human Services.”
In other words, justice, abiding by the law, and free market competition would cause Pfizer to collapse.
The peer reviewed studies of the past that led to the approval of questionable pharmaceutical drugs are showing their fallibility. Drug companies rely solely on peer reviewed research to test the safety of their products before public rollout. Widely reported in May of 2015, Richard Smith, who edited the British Medical Journal for more than a decade, said there was no evidence that peer review was a good method of detecting errors and claimed that “most of what is published in journals is just plain wrong or nonsense”. Smith went further to say “If peer review was a drug it would never get on the market because we have lots of evidence of its adverse effects and don’t have evidence of its benefit…It’s time to slaughter the sacred cow.” The public appears to be witnessing a slow motion admittance of continuous criminal research fraud.
It is vitally important to begin empowering yourself and loved ones in order to avoid contact with highly unethical, immoral, and criminal drug companies. By taking back the power to heal naturally, exposure to these companies and their products side effects can be minimized. Many questionable pharmaceutical products have, unpatentable, counterparts mirrored naturally occurring in the plant, herb, and fungi kingdoms. Alternative methods and natural health is exploding in popularity for good reason…because it works!
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