Another Layer of Corruption in the Opioid Scandal Revealed

From Dr. Mercola:

STORY AT-A-GLANCE
In 2021, McKinsey & Company, one of the largest consultants to corporations and
governments worldwide, settled a lawsuit brought by 47 state attorneys general over its
role in the U.S. opioid crisis. The rm agreed to pay $573 million in nes for driving up
sales of Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin painkiller, even as Americans were dying in droves.
Another Layer of Corruption in the Opioid Scandal Revealed
Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola  Fact Checked April 25, 2022
In 2021, McKinsey & Company, one of the largest consultants to corporations and
governments worldwide, settled a lawsuit brought by 47 state attorneys general over its
role in the U.S. opioid crisis


You can watch a related video here: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2022/04/25/mckinsey-fda-opioids.aspx?ui=66b0565fb6212c8757beceffe2d2130105c533f696b50c31d375d08c3256968f&sd=20201227&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1ReadMore&cid=20220425_HL2&mid=DM1158796&rid=1471867440

A U.S. House investigation reveals McKinsey was advising the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration on the safety of opioids, while at the same time advising Purdue how to
maximize sales

Jeff Smith, a senior McKinsey consultant, worked on a risk evaluation and mitigation
strategy (REMS) for OxyContin while simultaneously advising the FDA about the drug’s
safety

McKinsey promoted its FDA connections when pitching services to its pharmaceutical
clients. The FDA, meanwhile, claims it had no idea McKinsey was working with Purdue

Purdue knew the dangers of its drug, covered it up, and hired FDA insiders to advise its
sales strategy and how to inuence the FDA. They also hired Publicis to manage its
marketing. Publicis, the world’s largest PR company, funds and partners with “fact
checking” organizations to suppress and censor the truth

Between 1999 and 2019, nearly 500,000 Americans died from overdoses involving
opioid drugs, and false advertising and bribery were at the heart of this tragedy. As
reported by The New York Times:
“McKinsey’s extensive work with Purdue included advising it to focus on selling
lucrative high-dose pills, the records show, even after the drugmaker pleaded
guilty in 2007 to federal criminal charges that it had misled doctors and
regulators about OxyContin’s risks. The rm also told Purdue that it could ‘band
together’ with other opioid makers to head off ‘strict treatment’ by the Food and
Drug Administration.”
Worse Than We Thought
We now find out that the situation is even more corrupt than we previously thought. A
U.S. House investigation into McKinsey, based on materials obtained through the
discovery process of this and other lawsuits, has revealed McKinsey was advising the
FDA on the safety of opioids, while at the same time advising Purdue how to maximize
sales.
In one instance, McKinsey wrote “scripts” for Purdue to use in its meeting with the FDA
to discuss the safety of OxyContin in pediatric populations. In another, Jeff Smith, a
senior McKinsey consultant, worked on a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS)
for OxyContin while simultaneously advising the FDA about the drug’s safety.
As noted by investigative journalist Paul Thacker, “Just think about that for a moment —
for years McKinsey played both cop and robber.” As reported by The New York Times,
April 13, 2022:
“Since 2010, at least 22 McKinsey consultants have worked for both Purdue
and the FDA, some at the same time, according to the committee’s 53-page
report …
The rm provided no evidence to the committee that it had disclosed the
potential conicts of interest as required under federal contracting rules — an
‘apparent violation,’ the report said.
McKinsey also allowed employees advising Purdue to help shape materials that
were intended for government ocials and agencies, including a memo in 2018
prepared for Alex M. Azar II, then the incoming secretary of health and human
Services under President Donald J. Trump.
References to the severity of the opioid crisis in a draft version of the memo,
the documents show, were cut before it was sent to Mr. Azar.
‘Today’s report shows that at the same time the FDA was relying on McKinsey’s
advice to ensure drug safety and protect American lives, the rm was also being
paid by the very companies fueling the deadly opioid epidemic to help them
avoid tougher regulation of these dangerous drugs,’ Representative Carolyn
Maloney, the New York Democrat who chairs the committee, said in a statement
…
A bipartisan group of lawmakers last month introduced legislation aimed at
preventing conicts of interest in federal contracting, citing McKinsey’s
experience with Purdue and the FDA.”
The FDA, in response, has stated that it “relies on its contractors to assess and report
potential conicts of interest,” The New York Times reports. In other words, it’s just
pointing ngers and refusing to take responsibility for working with advisers that clearly
could, and should, be suspected of having ulterior motives, based on their client base.
Isn’t it obvious that McKinsey, working to improve sales for its opioid-making clients,
might give the FDA biased advise on behalf of those clients? Remarkably, in October
2021, the FDA wrote to senators claiming they had no idea McKinsey was even
working for Purdue, and didn’t nd out about it until media reported it in early 2021.
It seems beyond irrationally foolish that the press could nd out about it, but not the
FDA — somewhat like the head of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, going on CNN and
quoting Pzer press releases as factual data.

McKinsey Advised FDA on Opioid Safety
The FDA hired McKinsey as an adviser in 2011. The company worked with the FDA
oce overseeing drug companies plans to monitor safety of risky products such as
opioids, and internal documents show that, on multiple occasions, McKinsey promoted
its FDA connections when pitching services to its pharmaceutical clients.
For example, in a 2009 sales pitch, McKinsey wrote that it provided direct support to
regulators, “and as such have developed insights into the perspectives of the regulators
themselves.”
In a 2014 email to Purdue’s chief executive, McKinsey consultant Rob Rosiello wrote,
“We serve the broadest range of stakeholders that matter for Purdue. One client we can
disclose is the FDA, who we have supported for over ve years.”
Evidence also suggests McKinsey took “steps to limit material that could be
subpoenaed” once Purdue was sued, The New York Times reports. In one instance,
printed hardcopies of slide decks were sent to Purdue instead of being emailed because
they knew Purdue staff would be deposed and didn’t want their email correspondence to
“get sucked into it.”
Did McKinsey Inuence FDA Commissioner?
The Interim Majority Staff report by the Committee on Oversight and Reform, titled
“The Firm and the FDA: McKinsey & Company’s Conicts of Interest at the Heart of the
Opioid Epidemic,” published April 13, 2022, also includes emails in which McKinsey
employees claim to have inuenced an opioid safety speech by then-FDA commissioner
Dr. Scott Gottlieb.
Gottlieb denies the accusation, but the fact that McKinsey was working so intimately
with the FDA means they certainly would have been capable of such inuence. Gottlieb
also has nancial ties to the opioid industry, having received $45,000 in speaker’s fees
from companies that manufacture and distribute opioids.

In 2012, Gottlieb also wrote a Wall Street Journal essay, attacking the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) for pursuing the criminal activity of opioid distributors, saying it
would burden patients, “including those with legitimate prescriptions who may be
proled at the pharmacy counter and turned away.”
Intent to Harm
What we have here is a picture of gross conicts of interest with an apparent intent to
harm. Purdue Pharma was as crooked as they come, conducting sham studies and
bribing doctors to prescribe its highly addictive opioid, while its consultant, McKinsey
advised the FDA on the drug’s safety.
At the same time, Purdue also worked with the Publicis Groupe — the largest PR
company in the world as of November 2021 — which funded the startup of NewsGuard,
a “fact checking” group that rates websites on criteria of “credibility” and “transparency.”
In April 2021, Publicis partnered with NewsGuard specically “to ght the ‘infodemic’ of
misinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines.”
NewsGuard’s health-related service, HealthGuard, is also partnered with the Center for
Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) — a progressive U.K.-based cancel-culture leader with
extensive ties to government and global think tanks that has labeled people questioning
the COVID-19 vaccine as “threats to national security.”
At the beginning of May 2021, the Massachusetts attorney general led a lawsuit
against Publicis Health, accusing the Publicis subsidiary of helping Purdue create the
deceptive marketing materials used to mislead doctors into prescribing
OxyContin.
“ Purdue knew the dangers of its drug, covered it up,
hired FDA insiders to advise its sales strategy and
influence the FDA, and a PR company that had the

ability to suppress and censor negative news to
manage its marketing.”
Like Purdue, Publicis also cashed in on the opioid addiction it helped create by pitching
its services to organizations working to end addiction. As reported by Forbes, the
agency “won the account to work on drugfree.org after touting how it’s been ‘immersed
in the evolving national opioid medication dialogue going on between pharma
companies, the government and FDA, and the public via inside access as a trusted and
informed consulting partner.’”
So, to summarize, Purdue knew the dangers of its drug, covered them up, hired FDA
insiders to advise its sales strategy and inuence the FDA, and is connected with a PR
company that had the ability to suppress and censor negative news to manage its
marketing. It’s hard to describe this scheme as anything but intentional mass murder.
The Spin Doctors
The reality may even be worse, and much larger, than that, seeing how Publicis is also a
partner of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is leading the call for a “reset” of
the global economy and a complete overhaul of our way of life.
As detailed in the featured video, Publicis’ ngerprints can be found throughout the net
of censorship and misdirection that is now being cast across the digital landscape. As
the No. 1 PR company in the world, Publicis has just the right credentials and inuence
to pull off a deception of this size.
It’s part of an enormous network that includes international drug companies, fact
checkers and credibility raters, Google, Microsoft, public libraries, schools, the banking
industry, the U.S. State Department and Department of Defense, the World Health
Organization and Disney, just to name a few. As noted by investigative reporter David
Marks in “How PR Giant Publicis Promotes Greed, Deception on Behalf of World’s Most
Powerful”

“The essential skill of these expert spin doctors is their ability to fabricate a
favorable interpretation of damaging information or activity or diminish the
impact of the truth.
Through tried and true psychological ploys, repetition of false information or
casting doubt on factual realities, ad agencies and PR rms target those who
need to be inuenced on behalf of their clients …
An examination of one of the largest entities neck-deep in managing these
mass psychological operations reveals the depth of the dysfunction aicting
the planet. The vast activities of the Publicis Groupe demonstrate how the
tentacles of greed, prot and privilege connect the catastrophic agendas of the
most powerful enterprises on Earth …
Using sophisticated social psychology and incorporating the cutting edge of
articial intelligence, Publicis PR experts are masters of damage control, the
manipulation of words and people, and of selling the unsellable. Publicis is
organizing inuential activities worldwide, overtly revealing its mission and
priorities.
… [Its] website reveals who actually benets from the company’s services: ‘The
entire Publicis Groupe transformation was designed to put clients at the center
of all we do. Their needs and objectives drive the solutions we provide in order
to help them win and grow’ …
In considering the range of activities Publicis engages in, the dots are so close
there is no need to connect them. The PR giant’s methodology is transparent.
Whether promoting opioids or pushing vaccines, rebranding status quo
proteering as a Great Reset, supporting cigarette sales, disguising the true
nature of the fossil fuel industry, increasing soft drink consumption or covering
for assassinations — Publicis has all the skills and facilities to create whatever
fabrications are needed to sell products and inuence how their wealthy
collaborators are viewed.

The Publicis Groupe and its allies are at the hub of a worldwide insidious,
destructive disinformation campaign, relying on the duplicitous ways of
advertising and public relations in the loyal service of clients.”
A Plan to Drug the Useless Eaters?
As a WEF partner and global PR machine for some of the most powerful industries on
the planet, it seems reasonable to assume Publicis is helping to coordinate the WEF’s
Great Reset agenda. Sadly, that includes not only the management and control of the
peoples of the earth, but also the elimination of “undesirables.”
In a 2015 interview (video above), Yuval Noah Harari, a history professor and adviser to
WEF founder Klaus Schwab, discussed what Schwab refers to as The Fourth Industrial
Revolution (i.e., transhumanism), noting that we’re now learning to “produce bodies and
minds” (meaning augmented bodies, and cloud and articial intelligence-connected
minds) and that one of the greatest challenges we face will be what to do with all the
people that have become obsolete in the process.
How will unaugmented people nd meaning in life when they’re basically “useless,
meaningless”? How will they spend their time when there’s no work, no opportunity to
move up in some kind of profession? His guess is that the answer will be “a combination
of drugs and computer games.”
This raises a disturbing question. Was the opioid crisis the result of an intentional plan
— a conspiracy in the literal sense of the word — to hook the masses on an addictive
drug? This is purely speculative, of course, but it surely ts in with The Great Reset
agenda as a whole.
If people are addicted, the drug and medical industries make money (and they’re without
doubt part of The Great Reset network), and if people die, well, that’s in accordance with
The Great Reset plan too, as they insist there are too many “useless eaters” on the
planet, and they either must be managed or eliminated.

Publicis Is Part of the Global Monopoly
In closing, it’s worth noting that Publicis is partially owned by the Vanguard Group, one
of the two largest asset management rms in the world. Together with BlackRock,
Vanguard has a hidden monopoly on global asset holdings and exerts control through
their ownership of some 1,600 American companies.
Combined, BlackRock and Vanguard own nearly 90% of all S&P 500 rms. To learn
more about how Vanguard and BlackRock own just about everything in the world, and
have monopoly control over all industries, check out the 45-minute video above,
“Monopoly — Follow the Money.”
In short, the idea that there is competition in the marketplace is a cleverly disguised
illusion. In reality, everything is controlled by a small group of asset managers that win
no matter what. The end goal is to own and control all the world’s assets, which includes
people.
The WEF slogan “You’ll Own Nothing and Be Happy” really summarizes The Great Reset
plan for mankind. They will own everything; you will own nothing, not even your own
body, and you’ll be too drugged up and lost in a make-believe computer game world to
realize you’re a slave. If they can somehow make a prot from your useless existence,
they’ll let you live. If they can’t, you’ll be eliminated. That’s really what the plan comes
down to.
The plan for global authoritarianism is advancing with each passing day, but all is not
lost yet. By informing ourselves and sharing what we know with others, we can reach
the critical mass needed to end their plan and take back control.
It’s going to require standing together, unied in favor of freedom and liberty. It’s going
to require legal and legislative efforts to weed out the corruption and inltration that has
occurred throughout the corporate world and our governments. It’s going to require
honest men and women to step into positions of power that they never wanted. It may
take a lot of time and effort, but if we want our descendants to experience freedom, no
price can be too great to pay.

Sources and References
New York Times February 3, 2021 (Archived)
CDC Opioid Epidemic
Interim Majority Staff report, Committee on Oversight and Reform, The Firm and the FDA: McKinsey &
Company’s Conicts of […] April 13, 2022
Endpoint News April 13, 2022
Epoch Times April 16, 2022
The Disinformation Chronicle April 19, 2022
New York Times April 13, 2022 (Archived)
S.3905, To Prevent Organizational Conicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition, and for Other Purposes
Maggie Hassan Senate October 27, 2021
Forbes November 3, 2021
Twitter Publicis Health Media April 27, 2021
NewsGuard HealthGuard
Off-Guardian August 11, 2020
Commonwealth of Massachusetts Superior Court Complaint CA No. 21-1055 (PDF)
STAT News May 6, 2021
Boston Globe May 8, 2021
Forbes May 7, 2021
CommonHealth May 7, 2021
Courthouse News May 6, 2021
World Economic Forum, Publicis Groupe
World Economic Forum, The Great Reset
Abundant Hope January 6, 2022
The Puppet Masters Portfolios July 31, 2021
The Conversation May 10, 2017

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