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As The Washington Examiner uncovered, 46brooklyn isn’t exactly what it claims to be. It’s actually the nonprofit arm of 3 Axis Advisors, a for-profit consulting firm with strong financial links to pharmaceutical companies. Even worse, key members of 46brooklyn’s leadership team have financial interests in drug manufacturers and pharmacy chains. In short, “independent” is the last word anyone should be using to describe them.
Despite the glaring conflict of interest, major media outlets have repeatedly used 46brooklyn’s data to argue that Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) — not Big Pharma — are to blame for America’s skyrocketing drug prices. Convenient, isn’t it?
It’s a classic bait-and-switch — paint PBMs as the villains, give drug manufacturers a free pass, and pretend it’s all objective research. And the media? They eat it up, without ever asking who’s paying the bills behind the curtain.
This isn’t a fluke. It’s part of a decades-long trend of media failure.
Back in the early 2000s, glowing reports celebrated the antidepressant Paxil as safe for teenagers — reports based on research later found to be ghostwritten by the very pharmaceutical companies that profited off the drug. That same drug was later linked to serious mental health risks, including suicide. But by then, the media had already helped sell the lie.
More recently, even the once-reputable Cochrane Collaboration was called out in Nature for having questionable industry ties that may have skewed its supposedly neutral reviews. Still, outlets like The Guardian continue to treat them like gospel.
Meanwhile, our media landscape is dominated by “journalists” who act more like PR agents for the establishment than truth-seekers. “These aren’t the same journalists who once questioned the establishment — they are the establishment,” wrote Lori Klein, a former Arizona State Senator. “Just look at how they handled major news stories that turned out to be misleading or flat-out wrong.”
She points to the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story — a true report that was smeared as misinformation because it clashed with the corporate media’s political agenda. Or the lab-leak theory of COVID-19, which was once dismissed as fringe lunacy but is now accepted by many as a credible explanation. Journalists didn’t just miss these stories — they helped bury them.
In doing so, the media isn’t just failing at its job. It’s actively hurting the public.
By giving platforms to groups like 46brooklyn and ignoring their connections to Big Pharma, reporters are helping mislead lawmakers, cloud public debate, and derail real reform. “This misinformation doesn’t just mislead readers; it warps policy debates and distracts from real solutions,” Klein warns. “And at the end of the day, it’s patients who suffer.”
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America’s healthcare system is too corrupt, too complex, and too critical to let lazy journalism and phony research dominate the conversation. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening — and the cost is being paid by every American trying to afford their next doctor visit or prescription.
“Journalists must do better,” Klein concludes. “It’s their responsibility to vet sources, ask hard questions, and follow the money. When they fail to do so, they don’t just get the story wrong — they become part of the problem.”
If we want real healthcare reform, we can’t just fight the corporations — we need to hold the media accountable too. Because the truth is, when the press becomes a pipeline for Big Pharma talking points, the only thing that gets treated is the industry’s image — not the patients they’re supposed to serve.
