A new study shows a significant amount of overlap between government and pharmaceutical jobs, leaving the government “vulnerable” to industry bias. 

The study, published in Health Affairs, showed that over half of appointees to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services left their government jobs to work in the pharmaceutical industry, which generally pays more. The study was conducted by the University of Southern California Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and Harvard University.

“Although there are understandable reasons for people to move between the public and private sectors, the study notes that such a revolving door could make government agencies more vulnerable to pro-industry bias,” the USC Schaeffer Center said of the project.

Overall, the study found that nearly a third of those appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services went straight from government work into pharmaceutical industry work. The authors, Genevieve Kanter of USC and Daniel Carpenter of Harvard, evaluated 766 HHS appointees.

“Of people appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services between 2004 and 2020, 15 percent had been employed in private industry immediately before their appointment. At the end of their tenure, 32 percent exited to industry,” an abstract of the study says. 

They found no significant difference between party appointees leaving from government into the the pharmaceutical industry. 

The revolving doors can lead to conflict because of the key roll that federal agencies play in approving new drugs and treatments. 

“Laws passed by Congress get a lot of attention, but a lot of the real action actually happens at the regulatory level,” Kanter said. “Regulatory agencies can decide the fortunes of many companies.”

Kanter added that current law likely did not complete shield the government from bias, with only limited measures in place to prevent overlap. 

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“They do not broadly cover a lot of lobbying related to agency decision making – like regulations and drug authorizations – so they don’t necessarily deter that behavior,” she said. “The direction one might go is to expand the cooling off laws. But that’s a blunt instrument for a lot of subtle things that might be going on in terms of the effects of the revolving door.”

“What I am really concerned about is whether the personnel flow might lead to biases in government decision making,” she added. 

The Biden administration has petitioned for the Supreme Court to intervene against restrictions imposed on the chemical abortion drug mifepristone, claiming that limits on the drug are “damaging for women and healthcare providers around the Nation.”

In a legal filing on Friday, the Department of Justice said that the high court should not uphold limits placed on mifepristone that were set forth by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that would prohibit the distribution of the pills through the mail or prescribed via telemedicine. The limits placed on the drug cannot be implemented until the Supreme Court issues a ruling on the decision. 

“The effect of the lower court’s decisions would be to compel FDA to return to a pre-2016 regulatory regime that imposes restrictions on distribution that FDA has found to be unnecessary and unjustified,” the DOJ said in a cert petition. 

The DOJ said that mifepristone, used in up to half of all abortions, was “best method” to end the life of an unborn child early in development. 

Danco Laboratories, the manufacturer of a widely used abortion pill, also said in a Friday legal filing that the Supreme Court should throw out the Fifth Circuit’s limits on the drug. 

“For the women and teenage girls, health care providers, and States that depend on FDA’s actions to ensure safe and effective reproductive health care is available, this case matters tremendously,” wrote Jessica Ellsworth, a lawyer representing Danco. “And for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, permitting judicial second-guessing of FDA’s scientific evaluations of data will have a wildly destabilizing effect.”

The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom sued to stop the distribution and approval of the drug by the FDA. ADF lawyers have said that agency’s decision to approve mifepristone was political. 

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“The FDA’s unprecedented and unlawful actions did not reflect scientific judgment but rather revealed politically driven decisions to push a dangerous drug regimen without regard to women’s health or the rule of law. This is a significant victory for the doctors and medical associations we represent and, more importantly, the health and safety of women,” ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley said after the Fifth Circuit upheld restrictions of the drug last month. 

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case in its coming fall session after previously putting a stay on a broader federal judge order to fully suspend approval for the pill.