Senators give Big Pharma huge present at taxpayers' expense

[ellenrr]

Source: Reuters

The bill that averted the fiscal cliff included a largely unnoticed section that granted world’s largest biotechnology firm a two-year delay in regulations of its drugs – even though the firm has just pleaded guilty in a federal fraud case.

Sensipar, an expensive prescription drug produced by Amgen and used by kidney dialysis patients, is projected to cost Medicare up to $500 million over the next two-year period, since the legislation delays Medicare price restraints of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) drugs, the New York Times reports.

Amgen employs 74 lobbyists in Washington, DC and was the only company to lobby for this delay, Congressional aides told the Times. Most of the delay’s supporters are leaders of the Senate Finance Committee who have benefited from Amgen’s generous political donations. Critics of the measure discovered that Amgen had won a previous two-year delay already and consider the initiatives driven by personal gain.

Amgen has also been charged for illegally marketing one of its anti-anemia drugs, Aranesp. The firm pleaded guilty last month after a federal criminal investigation discovered evidence of its unlawful engagements. The company must now pay a $762 million settlement, which is its largest yet, but makes a small dent in its $15.6 billion annual revenue.


Read more: http://rt.com/usa/news/bill-firm-amgen-delay-441/

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The new language was discovered just hours before the bill was voted on.

[PoliticAverse]

1. "The new language was discovered" - makes it sound like it got there naturally...

instead of being inserted there by someone.

[customerserviceguy]

2. Always a possibility

when you have, "Here, don't read this, just vote yes on it, and quickly, we only have a couple of hours before the deadline," legislation.

[Volaris]

3. GOD how I hate lobbyists

if there's a Serpant in the Garden of American Democracy, its those fuckers.

[djean111]

5. And I hate the fuckers that obey them, just as much.

They wouldn't lobby if lobbying was not so fucking successful.
Let's give credit where credit is due.
Weren't lobbyists supposed to be banned a few years ago?

[flpoljunkie]

4. The culprits were Max Baucus and Orrin Hatch.

Shame on them!

[djean111]

6. Ah, bipartisanship of the only kind we actually get........

[Berlum]

7. Biotechnology producing vast numbers of OCCULT & harmful viral genes In Commercial GMO Crops

Your tax dollars at work:


Published (January 21st) in Independent Science News:

Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene In Commercial GMO Crops
by Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

Synopsis: A scientific paper published in late 2012 shows that US and EU GMO regulators have for many years been inadvertently approving transgenic events containing an unsuspected viral gene...

...The authors of the paper, working for the European Food Safety Authority, concluded that functions of Gene VI were potential sources of harmful consequences.

They further concluded that, if expressed, the fragments of Gene VI are substantial enough for them to be functional.

This discovery has multiple ramifications for biotechnology. Foremost, there is the immediate question of GMO safety and whether the 54 events should be recalled, but secondly, the failure implicates regulators and the industry in a circle of mutual incompetence and complacency.

The discovery also strengthens the argument for GMO labeling: if regulators and industry cannnot protect the public then why should they not be allowed to protect themselves?

URL: http://independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/regulators-discover-a-hidden-viral-gene-in-commercial-gmo-crops/

[Maineman]

8. Corruption, corruption, corruption! Damn I hate this.

We have got to do something about it.

One effort is with Move to Amend (for constitutional amendment that corporations are not persons). movetoamend.org

[Maineman]

9. Now we know why bills are passed at the last minute.

So they can sneek in crap like this.

Corruption, corruption, corruption.

[barbtries]

10. do we get to know just which senators

ran this scam?

[Berlum]

12. ReThugs, Inc. Against America. As usual.

Orrin Hatch deep in the biotech doo doo and taxpayer screw job.

[djean111]

13. Max Baucus (D) and Orrin Hatch (R)

[PSPS]

11. I'm convinced this is in the official US corporate press style book

When referring to torture, use "enhanced interrogation"

When referring to bribing, use "lobbying"

When referring to a bribe, use "campaign contribution"

[Cynicus Emeritus]

16. Corporate corruption and lobbying and campaign bribery

are the catalyst that have driven politicians to vote for wars of choice, trade policies that have sen jobs to China while allowing them to block our products, giving special deals to incompetent and crooked bankers and big pharma, etc.

Eliminate the legal bribery and we have a chance of a Congress that works for we the people.. Fixing it represents the single most important priority of government.

[Dustlawyer]

14. COMPLETE CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM (CCFR)!!!

It's the ONLY issue!

[spedtr90]

15. Max Baucus (D-MT), Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

Finally something they can agree on. (sarcasm)

Amgen’s employees and political action committee have distributed nearly $5 million in contributions to political candidates and committees since 2007, including $67,750 to Mr. Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman, and $59,000 to Mr. Hatch, the committee’s ranking Republican. They gave an additional $73,000 to Mr. McConnell, some of it at a fund-raising event for him that it helped sponsor in December while the debate over the fiscal legislation was under way. More than $141,000 has also gone from Amgen employees to President Obama’s campaigns.

Amgen has sent large donations to Glacier PAC, sponsored by Mr. Baucus in Montana, and OrrinPAC, a political action committee controlled by Mr. Hatch in Utah.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/us/medicare-pricing-delay-is-political-win-for-amgen-drug-maker.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

[WranglerRog]

27. Figures.....

2 Rethugs and a VIchy Democrat.

[mtasselin]

17. nice

How cool would it be if some main stage news outlook would pick up on this. Then publish all the names of these no good assholes, but no one will. After one of these jerks die they all gather around and say what a great person they were, forgetting how they screwed real Americans in the ground without a second thought.

[BE10sCoach]

18. $$$ Talks in Washington D C

Well I guess enough Senators, Republicans and Democrats, were again BRIBED by Big Pharma on this. It's sickening to see how our elected officials care for nothing but money and the Pacs and corporations who buy them off and occasionally allow a crumb of something to filter down to the people who elect them. This has got to stop!

[cstanleytech]

19. "driven by personal gain." Why dont they call it what it really is? Bribes.

It just so annoys me that so much of the news media is not honest anymore.

[mpcamb]

20. I know it's naive....

But doesn't this deserve a repeal?
A special bill to retract this piece of pork-barrel?
If it were introduced as a separate bill, it'd take a lot of audacity to be for it (not that there aren't people in Congress who could muster it).

[longship]

21. Unrec

[Angry Dragon]

22. It seems prison is always off the table

[NorthCarolina]

23. How much did Amgen actually fork over to congress critters

to get this legislation passed? Anyone know? I am just curious as to about how much 'Democracy' actually costs. If it is only a couple million, then the LGBT community could probably raise that much to buy equality.

[They_Live]

24. aha!

my new term: bribepartisan

©2013 by me.

[valerief]

25. Just discovered my ass. There are a gazillion staffers in DC who know this stuff inside out.

Almost as well as the lobbyists who write the bills.

[indepat]

26. Giving huge presents to large corporations at taxpayer expense concomitant with

squeezing social security and Medicare beneficiaries to pay for egregious corporate giveaways is the modus operandi of corporatist governments.

[Quantess]

28. The sort of thing we have come to expect.

Unfortunately.