Too Big to Fail?

Who doesn’t hate Bernie Madoff?

After contributing to the collapse of the global market and defrauding investors of between $50 and $65 billion, he’s finally going to jail.

Madoff makes a great villain. For nearly twenty years, he and his family lead privileged lives while plundering the life savings of his investors. Madoff not only drove his clients into bankruptcy and suicide, but has managed to perpetuate Judaism’s ugliest stereotypes.

Sadly, the real story is not about Madoff – nor is it about the millions of people here and abroad that would jump at the chance to exploit the trust of others. Some of Madoff’s investors now admit their own suspicions, unconcerned (then) about how he delivered impressive returns through good years and bad. Whether Madoff sold short or engaged in insider trading, harming other investors wasn’t nearly as important as their own faked portfolios. Madoff’s investors knew, should have known, or didn’t want to know – which is what makes the conflict between Madoff and his class-envied investors so delicious to the unaffected. Intoxicated by our collective schadenfreude, we continue to ignore an even larger story that has remained largely unnoticed for more than 25 years.

As Sarah Rubenstein reports this week, Massachusetts anesthesiologist Scott Ruben, MD now admits that he faked 21 medical studies that were used by drug companies like Pfizer, Wyeth, and Merck to market drugs like Bextra, Lyrica, Effexor, and Vioxx.

Like Madoff’s faked statements, these pharmaceutical companies and investors profited, as did the elected officials who control our investigative agencies, while thousands of patients were injured, killed, or were prescribed drugs that did not do what those multi-billion dollar drug companies implied they would do. As America’s latest fall guys, Madoff and Ruben are supposed to make us believe that our investigative agencies (SEC, FDA, NIH, and FBI) have finally stirred from their institutional narcolepsy.

Think again.

Sixteen years after the Organization of Research Integrity (ORI) and Dingell Investigation found Dr. Robert Gallo guilty of scientific misconduct, Gallo still receives millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded research grants, while the NIH and CDC continue to enforce America’s deadly HIV/AIDS policy. The editors of Science still refuse to respond to questions from well-respected scientists, despite the mounting evidence that weigh against Dr. Gallo’s original reports (1, 2, 3, & 4).

Madoff and Ruben may fall, but some frauds are apparently too big to fail.