Conflict of Interest Threatens Public Regulatory Bodies with Corporate Capture
Regulatory bodies are comprised of individuals with a special mandate to protect the public welfare. Individuals outside of these regulatory bodies – individuals who are not bound by these same mandates, and who may be subject to significant conflicts of interest that might bias them against promoting the public welfare – need to be excluded from the decision-making processes of public regulatory bodies.
It is vital that regulatory bodies remain independent of the private sector industries they regulate. They must also remain independent of any overarching state and federal bodies that might themselves be leveraged by private sector interests.
Over the course of the declared pandemic, the most obvious and flagrant example of private sector influence upon public regulatory bodies, as well as upon public organizations more generally, is the influence exerted by the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical companies have a clear mandate to pursue financial gain. Their primary goal is to increase shareholder profit and investment. It is not in their mandate, nor a marketplace requirement, nor even a marketplace expectation that they determine the nature of the public good, let alone promote or protect it.