Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about the conflicts of interests in regulatory agencies

The conflicts in our regulatory agency and in this building, these conflicts have transformed our regulatory agencies into predators against the American people and particularly our children.
And these scientists are allowed to collect royalties of $150,000 a year on the products that they develop at NIH and then farm out to the pharmaceutical industry. The FDA, the USDA, and the CDC are all controlled by giant for-profit corporations. Their function is no longer to improve and protect the health of Americans.
Their function is to advance the mercantile and commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry that has transformed them and the food industry that has transformed them into sock puppets of the industry they're supposed to regulate. Seventy-five percent of FDA funding does not come from taxpayers. It comes from pharma. And pharma executives and consultants and lobbyists cycle in and out of these agencies.
Money from the healthcare industry has compromised our regulatory agencies and to this body as well. The reality is that many congressional healthcare staffers are worried about impressing their future bosses at pharmaceutical companies rather than doing the right thing for American children."