Big Pharma’s media takeover: How drug companies bought the news — and your health

03/24/2025 / By Willow Tohi

In the mid-2000s, pharmaceutical companies formed financial partnerships with major media corporations, leveraging billions in advertising dollars to influence news coverage and suppress critical reporting on drug safety.
Investigative reports on vaccine risks and flu shot inefficacy — once covered by mainstream outlets — disappeared as editors killed stories under pressure from pharma-linked lobbyists.
Sharyl Attkisson’s reporting revealed that flu shots failed to reduce elderly deaths, but the findings were dismissed, and the story was buried due to Big Pharma’s media control.
Pharma dominates TV ad revenue (e.g., 75% of Fox News’ evening income), with six corporations controlling nearly all media, silencing dissent and promoting drug-dependent narratives.
Beyond ads, Big Pharma buys doctor compliance (e.g., $12B in payments) and shapes public health narratives, creating a cycle where media profits from keeping audiences uninformed and reliant on drugs.

For decades, Americans trusted the news to deliver unbiased reporting on public health. But what if the stories you hear — and those you don’t — are being shaped by billions of dollars in pharmaceutical advertising? Award-winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson is sounding the alarm on how Big Pharma quietly seized control of the media, starting in the mid-2000s.

The turning point: When Big Pharma bought the airwaves

In the early 2000s, mainstream media still allowed dissenting voices on vaccine safety. Shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Morning Joe hosted Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who openly discussed vaccine risks. Even Joe Scarborough shared his own son’s vaccine injury on air. Attkisson herself reported on the flu vaccine’s dismal effectiveness — until suddenly, those stories vanished.

“And then all of a sudden, it just all went away,” comedian and commentator Jimmy Dore observed.

So what changed?

Attkisson admits she didn’t fully grasp the shift at the time. But behind the scenes, pharmaceutical companies were forging direct partnerships with major media corporations — including CBS News, where she worked. Media and pharma lobbyists even joined forces to push Congress to legalize direct-to-consumer drug ads, which had been banned in most countries.

“This was forbidden, against the law,” Attkisson said. But once the floodgates opened, billions — then trillions — of advertising dollars poured into news networks.

The censorship effect: Stories that disappeared

The financial ties didn’t just influence commercials — they dictated what news got covered.

“We were starting to feel the effects of it in the news division at CBS,” Attkisson revealed. “Lobbyists from the corporation at CBS went together with pharmaceutical industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill to lobby members of Congress.”

The result? Critical investigations into drug safety were squelched. Editors no longer asked for “balance”—they outright killed stories.

“They were just saying, ‘We can’t tell this story at all. The people must not know about it,’” Attkisson said.

Former pharmaceutical consultant Calley Means confirmed this on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, calling it an “open secret” in the industry. The real goal of drug ads isn’t to sell pills — it’s to buy media silence.

The flu vaccine cover-up: A case study in media complicity

One of Attkisson’s most explosive reports exposed the flu shot’s failure to reduce deaths among seniors — despite soaring vaccination rates.

NIH scientists were stunned. Their own data showed no benefit, yet officials scrambled to dismiss the findings.

“No matter how they crunched the numbers, they got the same disappointing result,” Attkisson reported. “Flu shots have not reduced deaths among the elderly.”

But how often do you hear that on the news today?

Big Pharma’s stranglehold on news revenue

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently revealed that 75% of Fox News’ evening revenue comes from pharmaceutical ads. And it’s not just Fox — pharma is the biggest spender in TV advertising, saturating airwaves with feel-good drug commercials while suppressing negative coverage.

Consider:

Johnson & Johnson ($85.2 billion revenue in 2023)
Pfizer ($58.5 billion)
AstraZeneca ($45.8 billion)

With six corporations (Comcast, Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony, Amazon) controlling nearly all media, it’s no wonder critical voices are silenced.