I’m Appearing in DC for the MAHA Institute Weaponization of Science Round Table, on October 21

Please sign up to learn more about fraud in research.

2 minute read

Hello all,

I’m gonna be in DC for a round table on the flaws and fraud in research, sponsored by the MAHA Institute. If you’re in the area, please sign up and stop by. If not, the talk should be available later online.

The MAHA Institute Round Table takes place at the Willard Hotel, a pretty famous venue—where Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “I have a dream speech.” It’s pretty swank.

Back when I was running Senate investigations into corruption in science and medicine, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) would invite me to their Christmas parties held at the Willard. At the time, I had uncovered hidden ties between the pharmaceutical industry and researchers at universities across the nation, including Harvard, Emory, University of Wisconsin, Stanford, University of Texas—pretty much anywhere I looked.

Stories about these investigations I ran appeared across the media: Wall Street Journal, Science Magazine, New York Times, NPR, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Boston Globe, Nature Magazine, CBS Evening News, Chronicle of Higher Education, Associated Press, etc …. This was a time when journalists were actually interested in reporting on corruption in academia and the pharmaceutical industry.

While the AAMC tries to come off like a scholarly, academic outfit, they’re actually just the lobby shop for America’s medical schools. You might wonder why the AAMC would invite me to their Christmas parties when I was hard at work exposing corruption within their dues-paying members and then putting those findings on blast in major media outlets, like the New York Times editorial page. (If I remember correctly, I sat on the phone for about half an hour helping the Times editor write this piece.)

Well, there’s a simple explanation.

AAMC wasn’t inviting me to their black tie Christmas event because they liked me or wanted to befriend me. They invited me to keep me close, so they could learn what I thought, while also trying to shape what I was doing. It’s that famous quote from The Godfather, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

Once I left the Senate, I never got invited back to the AAMC’s swank Christmas party at the Willard. Oh, well.

Anyways, I hope you can make it to the MAHA Institute Round Table. Unlike with the AAMC, this time I’m being invited to the Willard because people actually want to hear what I have to say. Again, here’s a link to sign up: https://www.mahainstitute.us/science.

If you can’t make it on the 21st, look for a recording of the event posted to the MAHA Institute web page for their Round Tables. The talk should appear in a few weeks: https://www.mahainstitute.us/roundtables.

Thanks so much for reading.