If it quacks like a duck....
As Marcy says, looks like PhRMA went into a bit of a panic after my dustup with Anna Eshoo. They decided to hand 42 members of Congress scripts to insert into the Congressional Record.
The NYTimes article says there was one script for Republicans, and another for Democrats. Just so nobody had to tempt fate and rely on original thinking.
Evidently they thought the GOP script was more appropriate to so-called Democrat Heath Shuler. Which, I guess, sort of makes sense.
In the end, it's probably unfair to call them "shills." After all, it's entirely possible that they're just sincere, well-intentioned people with differing opinions. Forty-two of whom just happened to come up with the exact same thing PhRMA wanted them to say at the exact same time. Coincidentally, the same week that The Hill refused to publish my op-ed in rebuttal to what Eshoo wrote about me there on Friday, October 30.
We can't get members of Congress to insert our language into the Congressional Record, or stuff The Hill with so much Novartis and Pfizer advertising that they stick their fingers in their ears and sing "la la la la I can't hear you." But they and other passionate Eshoo defenders probably need to address the fact that she flat-out lied on evergreening, and they helped her do that.
When important cancer drugs can't go into cheaper generic forms, and cancer and AIDS patients around the world can't afford them, they should all remember the helpful role they played. Lord knows I will.
The rest of us can ask Sherrod Brown to save us from PhRMA and this truly shitty piece of lobbyist-written legislation HERE.
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