. . . . PhRMa and other lobbyists (BIO) did all of the following:– They hoodwinked the White House on their financial plight, pleading financial hardship when their prospects were exactly the opposite;
– They effectively bribed numerous members of Congress and the White House through millions in "legal" campaign donations and promises of future support;
– Genentech and BIO flooded Congress with lobbyists who turned members of both parties into stenographic shills for the drug makers (details from Marcy Wheeler, here and here);
– They conned Congress into proposing unjustified, lengthy and semi-permanent "evergreening" extensions of patent and exclusivity prohibitions on generics and bio-similars (more here and here);
– And they conned the Senate Finance Committee into shielding them from competition from drug imports and Medicare negotiations.
[ As Aldous Huxley foresaw, there would one day be government sanctioned drugs that enable us to turn off our normal human responses and accommodate ourselves to life in a world that we continue to make less and less livable. But if you take your meds, you can ignore the problems and continue to function.
