Administration Backs Big Pharma Over Public Health
posted Mon, 24 Jan 2011We have been reporting a lot lately on Big Pharma’s fraudulent ways. It has become abundantly clear that we can’t rely on pharmaceutical companies to make prescription drugs affordable.
Now, a legal case about drug pricing is being argued in front of the Supreme Court. And the Obama Administration has come down on the side of big pharmaceutical companies, rather than some of America’s neediest citizens.
The 1992 Public Health Service Act created a national drug-discount program whereby the Department of Health and Human Services would sign pricing agreements with drug companies. Under the program, 15,000 health care facilities are entitled to heavily discounted prescription drugs.
Despite these agreements, it was recently discovered that companies like AstraZeneca and Merck have been overhcharging for drugs. Big Pharma has been ripping off these public hospitals and clinics—some of the nation’s poorest—for years.
In a surprising turn of events, the Justice Department came down on the side of Big Pharma in a friend-of-the-court brief. We have long known that we can’t trust drug companies to work in the interest of public health, but we thought we had a friend in this Administration. Early on, Obama supported drug reimportation and pledged to stand up to drug companies on the subject of prescription pricing.
This change of heart, and the impact it is having on those most in need of affordable prescription drugs, isn’t one we can believe in.
Lee Graczyk, RxRights
Read more about the case:
U.S. Backs Drug Firms in Lawsuit Over Prices, The New York Times
White House sides with pharma in pricing case, FiercePharma newsletter