Big Pharma

The Fight Over Price Gouging By The Pharmaceutical Industry

August 5, 2017 Lydia O'neal And David Sirota, www.ibtimes.com Resist! Big Pharma, Drugs

By Lydia O'neal And David Sirota for International Business Times - As the Democratic Governors Association raised $2.28 million from drug companies and health insurers in the first half of 2017, the group’s chairman, Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, echoed a health care lobbyist’s criticism of a landmark bill to combat drug price-gouging, according to documents obtained by International Business Times. The documents detail how Malloy’s insurance department, led by a former Cigna lobbyist, tried to water down the bipartisan initiative as it moved through the state’s legislature. This spring, while Washington lawmakers wrestled over national health care policy, Connecticut lawmakers worked to join several other states that have passed legislation to curb an alleged drug price fraud scheme at the heart of multiple class-action lawsuits across the country. The suits accuse insurance firms and their pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, of attaching arbitrary and fraudulent premiums to consumers’ prescription drug prices, then pocketing the cost difference — all while using “gag orders” to keep pharmacies from informing customers about lower-priced options.

Rx Companies To Get $28 Billion Tax Break In GOP Health Plan

June 23, 2017 Will Rice, www.americansfortaxfairness.org Educate! Big Pharma, Corporations, Taxes

By Will Rice for Americans for Tax Fairness - Pharmaceutical companies are among the biggest offshore tax dodgers. Three drug firms—Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck—are among the top 10 American corporations stashing earnings offshore to avoid U.S. taxes. Pfizer (maker of Celebrex, Lipitor, and Viagra) alone has some $200 billion in profits parked offshore, much of it presumably in tax havens. Gilead Sciences and Amgen each has around $37 billion offshore, apparently all of it in tiny nations where little or no tax is due. (American corporations owe U.S. taxes on all their worldwide profits each year, but a giant loophole lets multinationals indefinitely delay paying on profits booked offshore.) A big chunk of Gilead’s stashed profits came from hepatitis cures priced so high that hundreds of thousands of patients went untreated even as the federal government was laying out billions of dollars a year for Gilead’s drugs. Last year, Pfizer tried to renounce its American identity in order to dodge $35 billion in U.S. taxes, even though it’s prospered here for over 150 years and gets about a billion dollars annually in federal contracts.

Drug Firms Poured 780M Painkillers Into WV Amid Rise Of Overdoses

December 21, 2016 Eric Eyre, www.wvgazettemail.com Resist! Big Pharma, Drug use, Drugs

By Eric Eyre for Charleston Gazette-Mail - The trail of painkillers leads to West Virginia's southern coalfields, to places like Kermit, population 392. There, out-of-state drug companies shipped nearly 9 million highly addictive — and potentially lethal — hydrocodone pills over two years to a single pharmacy in the Mingo County town. Rural and poor, Mingo County has the fourth-highest prescription opioid death rate of any county in the United States. The trail also weaves through Wyoming County, where shipments of OxyContin have doubled, and the county's overdose death rate leads the nation. One mom-and-pop pharmacy in Oceana received 600 times as many oxycodone pills as the Rite Aid drugstore just eight blocks away.

21st Century Cures Act: A Gift To US Pharmaceutical Industry

December 13, 2016 Brad Dixon, www.wsws.org Educate! Big Pharma, Capitalism

By Brad Dixon for WSWS - The 21st Century Cures Act is an early Christmas gift from the US Congress to the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. The bill guts the regulatory powers of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), weakening the standards used to judge the safety and efficacy of drugs and medical devices. Notably, the bill does nothing to address skyrocketing drug prices. As part of its public relations cover for the corporate giveaway, Congress included in the bill some limited funding for biomedical research and other health initiatives. This funding, however, is not mandatory and will be subject to the annual appropriations battles over discretionary spending.

Newsletter: Elections Expose the Oligarchs

October 9, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Austerity, Banking and Finance, Big Banks, Big Pharma, Corruption, Democracy, Donald Trump, health insurance industry, Healthcare, Hillary Clinton, Neoliberalism, oligarchy, Sexism, Single payer health care, Tax Evasion, Wikileaks

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The 2016 presidential election has shown how the duopoly, the two parties that represent big business interests and the wealthiest, are corrupted in ways that prevent the people’s voices from being heard, their necessities being met and the planet being protected from human greed. During the campaigns, leaks have given people a behind-the-scenes look at how the parties operate and research on the candidates shows their personal failures. They give voters an image of elites who behave as if the law does not apply to them and who put themselves ahead of the public interest. Last Friday was a day of embarrassment for both the Republican and Democratic Parties. A tape showing Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault in lewd ways has gotten the bulk of attention, but Wikileaks also released thousands of pages of The Podesta Emails, 2,060 emails and 170 attachments. John Podesta is the ultimate insider.

$100,000-Per-Year Pill: How US Health Agencies Choose Pharma Over Patients

August 6, 2016 Fran Quigley, www.truth-out.org Educate! Big Pharma, health

By Fran Quigley for Truthout - Don Reichmuth survived prostate cancer once before, back in 2007, so his physician was concerned when tests recently revealed the cancer had returned. Reichmuth's physician prescribed a drug called enzalutamide, marketed by the Japanese company Astellas Pharma, Inc. under the brand name Xtandi. But when the physician sent the prescription to the pharmacy, the managers of Reichmuth's insurance plan sent back an immediate refusal to approve it.

Big Pharma Plans Massive Ad Blitz To Fight Criticism Of Drug Prices

August 5, 2016 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org Educate! Big Pharma

By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - The pharmaceutical lobby is gearing up for a massive, multi-million-dollar post-election ad blitz to fight the shifting rhetoric surrounding drug prices, Politico reports. Skyrocketing drug prices have become a central issue in the 2016 election cycle, bolstered by recent bipartisan legislation that aims to wrangle back control of the market andoutspoken criticism from Bernie Sanders and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

‘Pharmaceutical Companies Have Pressured Doctors, Suppressed Evidence’

June 16, 2016 Janine Jackson, www.fair.org Educate! Big Pharma, Corruption

By Janine Jackson for FAIR - Janine Jackson: In 2014, a class of drugs known as opioids were involved in more than 28,000 deaths, or 61 percent of all drug overdose deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The rate of opioid overdoses has tripled since the year 2000. Recent data show two different but related trends: an increase in so-called illicit opioid overdoses, largely due to heroin, and then this 15-year increase in overdose deaths involving prescription opioid pain relievers.

Putting Class Back In Class Warfare

June 12, 2016 Inequality.org, www.inequality.org Resist! Big Banks, Big Pharma, Inequality, Oil & Gas, Resistance

By Inequality.org, You have probably seen the work of the Other 98%, but you may not have known who was behind it. Flash mobs at the Target store, guerilla projections at Koch brothers meetings, marching against the Tea Party. Their social media posts and info-graphics, video animations and creative direct actions abound our internet feeds.John Sellers One of the sparks behind this movement is veteran organizer John Sellers. Sellers got his start working with Greenpeace, climbing buildings, hanging banners, and sailing the high seas. Later he co-founded the Ruckus Society, teaching creative direct action skills to campaigners from around the world. Lately, he’s been organizing the “Kayaktivist” protests in the Pacific Northwest against Shell Oil’s arctic drilling. He is co-founder of the Other 98%, a social media and creative action powerhouse with the goal of “Kicking Greedy Corporate Asses for the Harder Working Classes.”

Big Pharma Seeks to Capitalize On Cannabis

May 22, 2016 Maryam Henein, www.truthout.org Educate! Big Pharma, Corporatism, health, Medical Marijuana

By Maryam Henein for TruthOut. The medicinal properties of cannabidiol (better known as CBD), a compound found in the Cannabis sativa L. plant species, are quickly drawing the attention of scientists, plant-medicine lovers, dietary-supplement companies, venture capitalists,professional athletes and Big Pharma -- not to mention people living with serious, chronic medical conditions. Insiders predict the burgeoning market will be as profitable as the NFL. Today, if you run a search on PubMed.gov, a medical research database, you'll find more than 1,500 academic articles on cannabidiol. Unlike tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), CBD has no euphoric properties whatsoever, and carries no street value. What it does offer, however, are a host of health benefits.

Whistleblowers Claim Popular Asthma Drug Was Marketed Illegally

March 14, 2016 Martha Rosenberg, www.alternet.org Educate! Big Pharma, health, Whistleblowers

By Martha Rosenberg for AlterNet - Asthma is big business for Big Pharma. Advair was the third best selling drug in the world in 2013 and the asthma drugs Singulair and Symbicort were also blockbusters. So it is no surprise the prospect of a high-tech injectable drug that stops an allergic response by binding to Immunoglobulin E (IgE) made Big Pharma sit up and take notice. Xolair (omalizumab), developed from humanized rodent cells (yes, you read that right), is part of Big Pharma's new wave of bio-engineered liquid drugs...

Senate Confirms New FDA Commissioner With Close Ties To Big Pharma

February 27, 2016 Staff, www.therealnews.com Educate! Big Pharma, FDA

By Staff of The Real News - Public Citizen's Dr. Michael Carome describes the thousands in consulting fees new FDA commissioner Dr. Robert Califf received from pharmaceutical manufacturers and why only four senators voted against his confirmation

Pharma Executives Worry Presidential Candidates Demand Reform

February 8, 2016 Lee Fang, www.theintercept.com Educate! 2016 Elections, Big Pharma, presidential elections

By Lee Fang for The Intercept - Responding to tough talk by presidential candidates about price gouging by drug companies, pharmaceutical executives have told investors that they are working actively to influence the political debate. And in a move that reveals how much leeway drug firms actually have over pricing decisions, some are even saying that they have minimized price hikes in recent months to avoid attracting attention. Democratic contenders Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have both called for the government to do much more to bring down the price of medications.

17 Of The Worst Corporate Crimes In 2015

December 27, 2015 Phil Mattera, www.DirtDiggersDigest.org Educate! Big Banks, Big Pharma, Bribery, Climate Change, Corporate crime, Finance, Food and Agriculture, Oceans, Oil and Gas, pollution, Wage Theft, Workplace hazards

By Phil Mattera for Dirt Diggers Digest. The ongoing corporate crime wave showed no signs of abating in 2015. BP paid a record $20 billion to settle the remaining civil charges relating to the Deepwater Horizon disaster (on top of the $4 billion in previous criminal penalties), and Volkswagen is facing perhaps even greater liability in connection with its scheme to evade emission standards. Other automakers and suppliers were hit with large penalties for safety violations, including a $900 million fine (and deferred criminal prosecution) for General Motors, a record civil penalty of $200 million for Japanese airbag maker Takata, penalties of $105 million and $70 million for Fiat Chrysler, and $70 million for Honda. Major banks continued to pay large penalties to resolve a variety of legal entanglements. Five banks (Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS) had to pay a total of $2.5 billion to the Justice Department and $1.8 billion to the Federal Reserve in connection with charges that they conspired to manipulate foreign exchange markets.

Stop Obama From Putting Big Pharma In Charge Of FDA

October 18, 2015 CREDO, www.credoaction.com Petitions and Online Actions Big Pharma, FDA, Healthcare

By CREDO Action - Petition to the U.S. Senate: "Oppose the nomination of Dr. Robert Califf as head of the Food and Drug Administration. At a time of rising prescription drug prices and safety risks we need a champion for American families, not an insider so closely tied to the pharmaceutical industry." Americans pay the highest prices for prescription drugs of anywhere in the world – and the cost is going up, 12% on average in the last year and in some cases nearly 1,000%. We need an FDA chief with the guts to stand up to the pharmaceutical companies. But instead, President Obama has nominated Robert Califf, a doctor described as “the ultimate industry insider.” Sen. Bernie Sanders recently made waves by announcing he would oppose Califf’s nomination, and we need to demand the rest of the Senate follow his lead.

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