By Mollie Engelhart at Brownstone dot org.

I am a mother. I have never been vaccinated myself. I believe deeply in informed consent. And I want to say clearly that I am hopeful about Bobby's leadership at HHS. I want to believe that he can bring real transparency and accountability to a government that has too often cozied up to the corporations it is supposed to regulate.

But when I read the headlines about Trump's "landmark" deal with Pfizer, I don't feel hopeful. I feel misled.

We are told that Pfizer has committed $70 billion to research, development, and production here in the United States. That sounds impressive, like a historic victory for the American people. But the truth is, Pfizer already spends billions every year on research and development. That is simply the business they are in. Without that constant pipeline, they do not survive.

So what is really new here? Nothing at all. It is the same budget they were already going to spend, repackaged and sold as a bold new commitment. The difference now is that Pfizer gets something in return: tariff relief, political cover, and a government-backed direct-to-consumer program called TrumpRx.

That is what makes this deal so frustrating. Pfizer is not changing its behavior. They are not suddenly sacrificing profits or doing more for patients. They are being rewarded for business as usual, only now with added advantages that strengthen their market position even more. And we are being asked to celebrate it as if it is some great victory for ordinary families.

Every producer wants to cut out the middleman. I know this from my own life. As a meat producer, I do not want to pay one. As a vegetable producer, I do not want to pay one. As a content creator, I do not want to pay one. Nobody does. And now Pfizer, of all companies, is getting the official blessing of the US government to do exactly that.

This is the same Pfizer that misled the public during Covid. That is not a rumor, it is documented. Whistleblowers from trial sites described falsified records, patients who were not properly followed up after adverse events, and unqualified staff handling sensitive data. State attorneys general have accused Pfizer of downplaying serious risks, including heart inflammation in young men and pregnancy complications in women.

Kansas has even claimed the company hid internal studies that showed risks while telling the public something different. And the most central promise of all, that the vaccines would stop transmission, simply was not true, even though the marketing never caught up to that reality.

Meanwhile, Pfizer made billions from a product that the government helped mandate, all while enjoying liability protection. So I cannot celebrate when the same company announces what it calls a "new commitment." It feels like smoke and mirrors.

And then there is the larger picture. The United States is the biggest consumer of pharmaceuticals in the world. No other country takes more pills, shots, or prescriptions. Yet our health outcomes are the worst among wealthy nations. We spend the most money, we take the most drugs, and we die younger. Our life expectancy is the lowest in the developed world.

Our rates of chronic illness, diabetes, obesity, and preventable death are higher than our peers. How can that be? How can the country that consumes the most medicine also be the sickest?

That contradiction tells me something important. The problem is not that we lack access to drugs. The problem is that we have built a culture that relies on them for everything. Every ache, every fear, every deviation from perfect health is met with another prescription. And the more drugs we consume, the worse our outcomes become.

That is why this deal troubles me so deeply. Instead of asking why Americans are drowning in pharmaceuticals, our leaders are handing the biggest player in the game even more power. Instead of creating a system that helps families thrive without being tethered to pills and injecti...