Strange Bedfellows: Big Pharma and the White House
posted Fri, 7 Jan 2011The White House and the pharmaceutical industry are working together to eliminate prescription drug importation, under the guise of public safety.
If the administration is truly concerned about the safety of prescription drugs, perhaps it should protect itself and the public from the industry by using drug importation. An unaffordable drug is neither safe nor effective!
If we can’t trust the pharmaceutical industry not to defraud us as taxpayers, how can we trust them as the purveyors of policies in the public interest regarding prescription drugs?
When the industry can inflate drug prices and the cost of paying the fines for doing so become acceptable costs of doing business; the fines are too low and have got to be accompanied by criminal prosecutions.
Unfortunately, it appears that as long as the pharmaceutical industry is willing to share part of its ill gotten gains with the administration, the White House is willing to look the other way. At present it's hard to separate the administration from the industry!
The industry keeps paying the fines; the administration keeps the industry’s executives out of jail, and nothing changes! The pharmaceutical industry will spend $80 billion over the next ten years to help pay for the President’s health care reform plan. In exchange, the administration has given up the right to negotiate cheaper drug prices for American consumers.
With the administration and the industry teaming up like this, it’s definitely “change” the industry can believe in!
Lee Graczyk, RxRights