Trading places: Former CDC boss joins Big Pharma

Dr. Julie Gerberding, former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has landed a sweet job in the lap of Big Pharma luxury. She’s gone from making public health decisions on meds from companies like Merck… to running a key Merck division.

We all think about the future from time to time. I wonder what was running through Dr. Gerberding’s mind during her seven years in charge of the CDC… and if it ever had an impact on the decisions she made there. After all, as head of the CDC, Dr. Gerberding was a tireless advocate. Just not for you. She put much of her time and energy into promoting Big Pharma vaccines, including Gardasil – Merck’s dangerous HPV vaccine (I hate calling it that – because it actually offers only limited protection from some strains of the virus).

In fact, under her watch, the CDC began aggressively pushing Gardasil on young girls. Someone at Merck must have noticed… because in her new role, she’ll oversee the company’s $5 billion-per-year vaccine business. That includes Gardasil, flu shots, chicken pox vaccines and more.

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