I do not agree with him, but I think you're making a much more salient point indirectly.

Public policy that can be readily manipulated by bad actors (as the drug industry is certainly full of) should not be used as the final say for anything. Systems need to be able to tolerate: corruption, false information, and true but misleading information. Our regulatory systems in general seem to struggle with any of the above. If "health authorities" (to avoid naming any particular organization) can only effectively screen out good actors inadvertently engaged in bad behavior, then they're effectively useless - because bad actors do exist, and they're vastly more dangerous than the former.