The Highwire with Del Bigtree - REFLECTING ON POWERFUL MOMENTS FROM FREEDOMFEST 2025

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Del looks back on last week’s HighWire episode, broadcast live from FreedomFest in Palm Springs, CA. He shares insights from his role as prosecuting attorney in a riveting mock trial against Big Pharma, facing off with defense attorney Catherine Bernard.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

We just got back from an amazing ride and experience in Palm Springs, California. We're at Freedom Fest. We set up, this is the best set up yet. We built a huge stage for the High Wire right in the middle of the showroom there. It was when you came through the front door. We want to talk about like product placement. There we were. You had to walk right by us.

Amazing guests, of course. We had Kennedy on, who's just fantastic. I love the way that sort of shows. She talks about things, Erin Siri. It was just an amazing experience. Did a lot of things at Freedom Fest. I think I was in more talks. I mean, I gave my own small talk.

I was on a panel that I ran with Brett Weinstein and Dr. Robert Malone. But probably the most outside of my wheelhouse, if you will, and one of the most fascinating things was I was a part of the mock trial. I guess this is something to do every single year. It's one of the biggest hits. The place was packed. and I was the prosecuting attorney, and my goal was to fight pharma, basically prove that the pharmaceutical institutions are actually using their power, manipulating the markets, you know, raking in money,

not caring for the public interest. It was a position I had to talk about, you know, that they're charging too much for everything. And on the other side was a defense attorney. Unlike me, she was a real defense attorney that was there to defend pharma. I, of course, a talk show host and an investigator and a journalist trying to act like an attorney. So I was really stressed. I had to do a lot of research in departments that were just outside of vaccines. They wouldn't let me make it just about vaccines. No, no, Dole has to be about drugs, has to be everything. In fact, the defense attorney is going to call an official former FDA attorney. In fact, the head of the legal department for the FDA backed between like 2000 and 2004.

So it really felt like the whole deck was stacked against me. I mean, somehow, pharma weave its way even into Freedom Fest where they get a real attorney, they get real FDA, you know, lawyers. And I'm over here, you know, trying to act like a lawyer. Of course, I called Dr. Robert Malone to the stand. We're actually going to air that mock trial on July 10th. It was really wild. There you have Michael Sherman.

If anybody has been watching the show, even the judge, Michael Sherman and I have locked up before and had a pretty heated conversation over vaccines and autism. Of course, he is the founder of Skeptic Magazine. So I was like, the judge and I may or may not get along very well based on like previous interactions. The whole thing was outrageous. I was about as nervous as I've ever been. But if you wanted a taste of just what that experience was like, take a look at this.

Dan Troy, please raise your right hand and place your left hand on a copy of this book, The World's Medicine Chest. how America achieved pharmaceutical supremacy and how to keep it by Sally C. Pipes. Great book. Do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing about the truth, so help you FDA? Absolutely.

Mr. Roy, one of the most famous cases in a drug that had misrepresented safety was Vioxx. Did you have anything to do with that case? I was at FDA when Merck came to us and said, yes, we think we want to withdraw Merck from the... Merck from the we want to withdraw Bioxx. FDA actually said you know if you put a black box warning you can keep that drug on the market but Merck said no we're going to take this drug off the market. There's an article about a famous email that came when they

finally had discovery in that Vioxx case says Merck made a hit list of doctors who criticized Vioxx according to testimony in a Vioxx class action case in Australia the list emailed between Merck employees contain doctors names with the labels neutralized neutralized and discredit next to them. According, can you just read this part right here for me? According to the Australian Merck emails from 1999 showed company execs complaining about doctors who disliked using biox. One email said, we may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live.

We may need to seek these doctors out there to question the safety of biox and destroy them where they live. That does not sound like the company that came to you and said, hey, we've discovered a problem. It sounds like a company that is hiding the fact. that they know that they have a product that's causing heart attacks. I can say as the general counsel of a large pharmaceutical company, that the bane of our existence was rogue emails.

I'll bet it is the bane of your existence, of course, and nothing against. Great panel of people. We were all up there. Some of it was tongue in cheek, tongue in cheek. But he obviously, you know, felt the heat, and he does now work for large pharmaceutical companies. So a very interesting debate and so many people came up and talked to me about it afterwards. It was one of the highlights of Freedom Fest and we were going to be airing that mock trial on July 10th.

I'm going to go ahead and do some camping with my kids and my family over July, but we're going to be, you know, putting up some really great contact. We've been collecting, including Freedom Fest there. So just really amazing. I just want to say to everyone that puts the Freedom Fest together, it's so well-oriented. It's such a brilliant experience and all of the great speakers that they have, the interactions there. Hopefully next year, if you didn't make it this year, I really recommend that's one of those conferences you should put on your calendar because it's really just talking about freedom. They call it a Liberty conference, but it's really conversations about freedom.

And it's amazing how, you know, the variety of types of people that want freedom in so many different spaces all coming. to have that conversation together. So really enjoyed that. Once again, one of the highlights of the year, the Highwire Live from Freedom Fest, it was blast.