NAS Report Turns Pharma-Friendly After Millions of Dollars in Donations (mercola.com)
Every year, taxpayers pay for at least $750 million worth of expensive pharmaceuticals that are simply thrown away, so Congress decided to assign the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to investigate.
What the NAS concluded was that Medicare should just stop tracking the cost of the drug waste altogether. What they didn’t say was that members of the investigative committee and the NAS itself have accepted millions of dollars in gifts from drug companies that have a direct interest in the government spending more money, not less, on pharmaceuticals.
Nearly $3 million came from Johnson & Johnson alone. J&J’s pharmaceutical products include vaccines and drugs for cardiovascular and pulmonary problems, to name a few. Another $1.1 million came from United Therapeutics Corp., a biotech that sells products for patients with chronic and life-threatening cardiovascular and infectious diseases.
Merck, Pfizer and AstraZeneca make up the next three drug makers that Kaiser said would be most interested in influencing the investigation. Bristol-Myers Squibb, AbbVie, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis filled in the top 10 that would want to stop the drug-waste investigation.
Big Pharma Supports the National Academies
Each year universities, foundations, individuals and corporations donate millions to the national academies. Here are 10 pharmaceutical companies that gave, most of which have a direct interest in the drug-waste issue.
Top Givers Have Millions to Lose in Drug-Waste Decision
Lawmakers have criticized pharmaceutical companies for packaging infused drugs, often for cancer, in “Costco”-size containers. Medicare tracks the value of the wasted drugs that doctors report each year. A national academies committee called for that reporting to end.
Waste Shocked Policymakers in 2016
Dr. Peter Bach and colleagues published an explosive paper in 2016 that for the first time showed that taxpayers and health insurance rate payers were bankrolling an estimated $2.8 billion a year in drug waste. The findings encompassed all U.S. health care — not just what’s reported by doctor’s offices to Medicare — and were covered widely in the news.
Bach, a researcher with the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, found that medications infused in doctors’ offices often arrived in vial sizes fit for a linebacker but might be given to a waif. Given sterility and other concerns, the extra milligrams, often for cancer therapies that can cost thousands of dollars per dose, were typically discarded.
Congress and policymakers took notice.
In 2017, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill urging health care agencies to develop a “joint action plan” to address the waste. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) introduced an even stronger measure in 2019 and again this year that would allow Medicare to recoup the cost of the wasted drugs. None of the bills has passed.
The refund mandate made it into a broader drug pricing measure that also failed, but not before the Congressional Budget Office took a close look in 2020 and estimated $9 billion could be saved over a decade.
Medicare officials also urged doctors to use a billing code to document the amount taxpayers were spending on wasted drugs each year — which amounted to $753 million in 2019 alone, Medicare data shows.
Before and while Bach’s paper was making waves, physicians who would eventually be on the national academies committee were forging alliances with the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr. Kavita Patel reported earning a speaking fee in 2015 from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, of $5,001 to $15,000. She also accrued assets valued at more than $50,000 for her role as a pharmaceutical company board member, according to 2015 and 2018 disclosures filed with the Government Accountability Office.
Dr. Anupam Jena, who also served on the committee, wrote a 2018 article with staff members of PhRMA arguing that medications should be valued not for their actual benefit, but rather for the potential for innovation that comes with making new therapies.
Donations. Gifts. Speaking Fee. Well, that is the terminology used to make BRIBE sound much nicer.
Exodus 23:8 Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent.
One reply on “NAS Report Turns Pharma-Friendly After Millions of Dollars in Donations”
Nice seven-figure haul on Speaking Fees!!!!! Hey, does that mean Citi has her in their pocket?
HUGE CONFLICT UNCOVERED: Janet Yellen Made Over $7 Million in 2020 for Speeches (on ZOOM Calls) During COVID from Citi Alone