Perpetual Revolving Motion: Yet More Transits Through the Health Care Revolving Door

The pace of people spinning through the US federal revolving door seems unprecedented. 

Most were people going from the health care corporations to government positions regulating or making policy influencing those same corporations.  Since our last roundup, of 11 days ago, we have found two more significant travelers from industry to government, and one from the previous administration to industry.  In addition, we realized that the case of one of the travelers discussed only last month is more significant than we realized.


Nina Devlin from Mylan to Senior Communications Adviser for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

As reported extremely briefly by The Hill on Oct 27, 2017,

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has hired a senior executive from EpiPen maker Mylan to be a senior communications adviser in the agency, CBS News reported Friday.

Nina Devlin, who was the head of global communications at Mylan, was reportedly hired on Oct. 15 and reports to the FDA's chief of staff.

At the time Ms Devlin was doing public relations for Mylan,

Mylan reached a $465 million settlement with the federal government stemming from a Justice Department claim that it had overcharged the government for EpiPens.

The EpiPen is a medical device that treats dangerous allergic reactions by injecting epinephrine.
Accusations that Mylan overcharged for EpiPens got so much media attention that it seemed superflouous to discuss this case on Health Care Renewal. However, we did discuss some earlier and more obscure Mylan shenanigans here.

So this appointment is troubling because Ms Devlin went straight from a pharmaceutical company to the main federal agency regulating pharmaceutical companies, and she went from a company with a notably recently checquered ethical record.

Scott Mungo from Vice President for Safety Etc for Fedex to Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

This case was described by Allgov.Com on November 12, 2017.  Mr Mungo's recent career was described thus,

In February 2000, Mugno was named managing director for corporate safety, health and fire prevention at FedEx. He held that post until December 2011, when he was named vice president for safety, sustainability and vehicle maintenance for the company’s FedEx Ground unit. Along with his more conventional duties there, Mugno served as 'brain coach' and 'den mother' for FedEx drivers participating in National Truck Driving Championship competitions. FedEx drivers often won their events. Mugno was in that job when nominated for the OSHA post.

In November 2012, Mugno was added to the Research Advisory Committee of the American Transportation Research Institute, and was its chairman at the time of his OSHA nomination. He is also chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce OSHA subcommittee.

Mr Mungo's record suggests that he may be more sympathetic to the interests of big corporate executives than to the safety and health of their workers. Per Allgov,

Industry groups welcomed Mugno’s appointment to OSHA, who has represented the American Trucking Associations at Congressional hearings, believing that he will continue the Trump administration’s drive to weaken worker-protection regulations put in place under the Obama administration. In 2006, Mugno told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that the actions of employees deserved more scrutiny, pointing out that obese workers and workers with high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels impact workplace safety. That same year, he told the publication Business Insurance: 'We’ve got to free OSHA from its own statutory and regulatory handcuffs.' He noted that much has changed since OSHA was established in 1971, and that some regulations should perhaps be subject to sunset provisions.

Another reason for Mungo's appointment might have been

Mugno was an enthusiastic Trump supporter, even attending the inauguration.

Dr Karen DeSalvo from National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services to Member of the Board of Directors, Humana

As reported by Louisville Business First on November 13, 2017,

Humana (NYSE: HUM), a Louisville-based health insurance and health services company, named Dr. Karen DeSalvo as the 12th member of its board of directors.

DeSalvo, 52, is a former government public health administrator and university administrator, according to a news release. Most recently, she held two overlapping roles with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: national coordinator for health information technology from January 2014 until August 2016 and the assistant secretary for health in the HHS department from October 2014 until January 2017.

Dr DeSalvo will now be responsible for the governance of a large health insurance company with a considerable Medicare supplement business, and which certainly has important interactions with electronic health records after having been the principal government officer overseeing EHRs, and an administrator within the agency that runs Medicare and other government insurance programs.

Joe Grogan, Lobbyist for Gilead to Director of Health Programs, Office of Management and the Budget

We had briefly discussed Mr Grogan's move from pharmaceutical manufacturer Gilead to the "White House working group on drug prices" here.  A November 13, 2017 article in the Washington Post makes it clear that Mr Grogan's influence over health care in general and the pharmaceutical industry in particular is much broader than what we described.  Not only did it specify his title to be Director of Health Programs for the OMB, but it also included:

Grogan, perhaps more than any other member of Trump’s administration, holds the power to nix or give the nod to hundreds of regulations shaping how the federal government runs Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, the FDA, the CDC and all the other sub-agencies contained within the sprawl of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Furthermore,

It’s fair to say that virtually every rule change proposed or enacted by HHS — from easing reporting requirements for doctors to exempting more employers from paying for birth control to rolling back drug discounts — have Grogan’s mark on them in some way.

'Whether it’s a big home health regulations or nursing homes or hospitals, I can tell you it’s a 90 percent Joe call,' [former CMS administrator Tom] Scully said.

The article made explicit that Mr Grogan's decisions are influenced by his industry background:

In 2006, he went to the FDA as a policy adviser, and from there joined the drug industry -- first at Amgen and then at Gilead Sciences. Those who know him say he brings those industry sensibilities to the OMB job.

'Philosophically, he’s very focused on making sure he understands the way that private industry operates and interacts with the government,' AdvaMed chief executive Scott Whitaker told me.

But of course, as a member of the executive branch, he is supposed to foster government of, by and for the people, not of, by and for big pharmaceutical corporations.  This is all more disturbing because of the sketchy ethical track record of his former employer, Gilead.  We have discussed the company's excessive pricing and promotion of its anti-viral drugs for the treatment of hepatitis C, which went way beyond any evidence of the drugs' benefits to patients.  While these drugs can abolish detectable hepatitis C virus in patients' blood over the short-term, there is no good evidence that they produce any long-term benefits, particularly that they prevent the known complications of hepatitis C, or extend patients' lives. 

Summary

On and on it goes.  The revolving door has been a chronic problem for the US federal government, but the level of revolving door activity in the current regime seems way beyond anything we have seen before.  It seems we chronical multiple instances of people going from important health care corporate positions to government positions that regulate or make policy affecting those same corporations for every instance of someone coming from the previous administrations to industry.

As we have noted now again and again and again....    The revolving door is a species of conflict of interest. Worse, some experts have suggested that the revolving door is in fact corruption.  As we noted here, the experts from the distinguished European anti-corruption group U4 wrote,

The literature makes clear that the revolving door process is a source of valuable political connections for private firms. But it generates corruption risks and has strong distortionary effects on the economy, especially when this power is concentrated within a few firms.

The ongoing parade of people transiting the revolving door from industry to the Trump administration once again suggests how the revolving door may enable certain of those with private vested interests to have excess influence, way beyond that of ordinary citizens, on how the government works, and that the country is still increasingly being run by a cozy group of insiders with ties to both government and industry. This has been termed crony capitalism. The latest cohort and now this most flagrant example of revolving door transits suggests that regulatory capture is likely to become much worse in the near future.

So, as we have said before [before, before...] The continuing egregiousness of the revolving door in health care shows how health care leadership can play mutually beneficial games, regardless of the their effects on patients' and the public's health.  Once again, true health care reform would cut the ties between government and corporate leaders and their cronies that have lead to government of, for and by corporate executives rather than the people at large.