John Rubino is a former Wall Street financial analyst and author or co-author of five books, including The Money Bubble: What to Do Before It Pops and Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green-Tech Boom. He founded the popular financial website DollarCollapse.com in 2004, sold it in 2022, and now publishes John Rubino’s Substack newsletter.
Alternative health guru Sayer Ji just published a small book’s worth of dirt on some manifestly evil companies. If he’s right — and generally speaking, I think he is — we’re witnessing poetic justice on a global scale. Here’s a tiny excerpt of the much longer post:
Layoffs, Lawsuits, and the MAHA Rebellion Paint A Concerning Picture for the World’s Largest Employer
An Industry-Wide Reckoning Transforms America’s Healthcare Landscape
Executive Summary
Mass Industry Contraction: Major pharmaceutical companies including Merck (6,000 layoffs), Moderna, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Novartis have implemented widespread workforce reductions in 2025, totaling thousands of job cuts as the industry faces declining revenues and patent expirations.
Historic Trust Collapse: Public confidence in pharmaceutical companies has plummeted to record lows, with only 20% of Americans expressing positive views of the industry, while 59% believe business leaders deliberately mislead the public on health issues.
Regulatory and Legal Pressures: The Trump administration has launched aggressive enforcement against pharmaceutical advertising, while lawsuits over products like Tylenol threaten billions in liability, culminating in major stock declines and investor uncertainty.
Grassroots MAHA Movement: The “Make America Healthy Again” movement has gained significant political influence, successfully pushing policy changes that challenge pharmaceutical dominance and promote health sovereignty, with global ripple effects across international markets.
Industry on the Brink: Mass Layoffs and Shrinking Fortunes
The U.S. pharmaceutical industry is facing an unprecedented downturn. Once buoyed by blockbuster drugs and pandemic windfalls, Big Pharma is now slashing thousands of jobs amid an industry-wide retrenchment. In August 2025, Merck announced 6,000 global layoffs — about 8% of its workforce — in a bid to save $3 billion annually¹. This dramatic cut comes as Merck braces for the patent expiration of its top-selling cancer drug, Keytruda, and grapples with declining vaccine revenues.
Merck is not alone. Moderna, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), and Novartis have all unveiled major layoffs in 2025, citing “shifting market demands” and looming patent cliffs². Moderna, for example, is trimming 10% of its staff after its COVID-19 vaccine sales collapsed — Q1 2025 revenue plunged to just $108 million — forcing a “difficult but necessary” downsizing³. BMS has enacted four rounds of cuts in 2025 (over 1,300 jobs) to pare costs, and Novartis axed hundreds of U.S. jobs as its heart drug Entresto lost exclusivity.
These mass layoffs underscore a broader decline in Big Pharma’s fortunes. After years of sky-high profits, the industry’s market dominance is shrinking. Companies are retrenching to survive a perfect storm: post-pandemic demand slumps, fewer new blockbusters, and the Inflation Reduction Act’s upcoming drug price controls. Even the stock market’s confidence in pharma has wavered; Pfizer and Moderna, once market darlings for their COVID vaccines, have seen their valuations slide as sales dry up. The result is a sector “navigating workforce reductions amid industry-wide cost-cutting” and bracing for leaner times⁵. In short, Big Pharma’s long-held growth narrative is cracking — and the cracks are widening by the day.
Public Trust Hits Historic Lows
Compounding the industry’s troubles is a collapse in public trust. Polls show Americans’ faith in pharmaceutical companies has sunk to record lows. In a Gallup survey, only 20% of U.S. adults voiced a positive view of the pharma industry, ranking it dead last among major business sectors. Distrust is especially rampant among young people. According to Edelman’s 2025 global health trust barometer, 59% of people believe business leaders mislead the public on health issues with information they know to be false or exaggerated. More than half also believe government officials and even journalists are complicit in this health misinformation.
How Pharma Money Shaped the COVID Narrative
For years, Big Pharma’s ad dollars wielded hidden power over media coverage — never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic. With news outlets reaping huge profits from vaccine and drug advertisements, critics argue there was a pervasive conflict of interest that stifled dissenting voices. Mainstream TV networks, flush with sponsorship from Pfizer, Moderna, and Merck, often gave limited airtime to doctors or scientists who questioned official COVID policies.
Alternative treatments and vaccine safety concerns were frequently dismissed as “misinformation,” with those with the largest followings (e.g. ‘disinformation dozen’) being labeled as ‘domestic terrorists,’ while commercial breaks bombarded viewers with “brought to you by Pfizer” segments. It did not go unnoticed: Americans saw the pharmaceutical industry’s fingerprints on the media narrative, and it further eroded trust. “Pharmaceutical companies are spending billions to influence media coverage, ensuring only positive stories about their drugs and vaccines dominate the headlines,” one investigative report observed.
STAY INFORMED! Receive our Weekly Recap of thought provoking articles, podcasts, and radio
delivered to your inbox for FREE! Sign up here for the HoweStreet.com Weekly Recap.
