Why are we suddenly pretending that the same industry that gave us the opioid crisis (in addition to dozens of other serious unethical practices for which they've been sued) is suddenly above shady research and massaging of results? Particularly when they have been legally absolved of liability and stand to gain tens-hundreds of billions of dollars?<p>It doesn't take a conspiracy. Just a little pressure from upper management. People don't want to lose their jobs and usually the way these things go only a handful of employees are actually involved in fraud while the rest are unaware or look the other way when confronted with suspicious circumstances.<p>This pandemic is not an excuse to give pharmaceutical companies the free reign to rake in cash with no accountability. And that accountability comes not just from government, but from laypeople too. It took five years to discover that thalidomide was causing severe birth defects in children, and the covid vaccines are based on an untested technology. I'm not being "anti-vaxx" here, just trying to offer up some common sense: when money is involved, there is no limit to what executives and unscrupulous employees are willing to do if they think they can get away with it. And in a complex system with so many moving parts, a handful of seemingly innocuous violations of good practices can combine to produce a serious outcome.<p>We should all be far more critical of this entire rushed process, especially in light of not just financial but political pressure to produce evidence of a working vaccine.<p>Edit: I didn't even bring up regulatory capture that we've also suddenly forgotten all about. The former FDA commissioner is on Pfizer's board of directors. As is the CEO of Reuters. Our economic system is ethically sick, the pandemic did not suddenly fix it.