The Biden Administration has sided with drug companies in a dispute over the cost of a prostate cancer drug. Consumers could die without the drug – which is what they told the administration – but Biden’s cabinet decided that profits for billion-dollar drug companies were more important. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The Biden administration has sided with drug companies in a dispute over the cost of prostate cancer. Now, let me say that again. The Biden administration sided with big pharmaceutical in a dispute over the cost of prostate cancer drug that was gonna save people’s lives. The Biden administration said it’s okay to charge more, even though, Farron, government and universities paid for all the research. Pick this story up.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. This is another one from The Lever. Again, my new favorite site.
Mike Papantonio: What a great.
Farron Cousins: David Sirota, Matthew Cunningham Cook, put this story together.
Mike Papantonio: These guys are brilliant. I love this site, man.
Farron Cousins: So what you have is, you have an individual who’s flown under the radar in the Biden administration named, Xavier Becerra. Mr. Becerra happens to be the head of Health and Human Services. But back when he was in the state of California, when Trump was in office, Mr. Becerra petitioned the Trump administration, you have got to lower the price on this specific prostate cancer drug because people are dying. And this drug has been proven. It’ll fix you for the most part if we get it in time. But you’re letting people die. How dare you Mr. Trump do this.
Mike Papantonio: It’s even uglier than that. It’s even uglier than that. Part of his argument was that taxpayers paid for the development of this drug. It was actually developed at a university and government paid for part of that. And then we let a drug company get the patent on it. And so there’s a solution, clear solution. The government has the ability to come in and say, we’re not gonna honor your patent. We’re gonna do what we call march-in rights. And march-in rights is when you say, this drug is so vital, A, it was paid for by taxpayers. The industry had nothing to do with developing this drug. They simply got the patent and now they’re gouging the eyes out of people to get this drug. So what is most bothersome about me is we have the Biden administration saying, well, it’s okay. And as I look at it, as I look at the connection between Biden and this, well, let me read this to you.
This, by the way, this is called The Lever. And it is a great source of information. When Biden was vice president, when Obama, during the administrative, during the Obama administration and congressional Democrats demanded that government used this march-in power to do away with the right of these pharmaceutical companies to lower skyrocketing medicine in America. It was Biden that was one of the eight Democrats who voted against it. And but for that vote, it would’ve passed. And so as I look at this, this is another deal where Reagan, again, it’s another Reagan story. Reagan comes in and he makes a requirement that drug companies sell medicine developed with public money at a reasonable price. He kept that under control. Clinton, Bill Clinton comes in, does away with that. So, you know, you got people out there saying, I’m a Democrat. Democrats are always good for us. You know, this is an example, if you’re believing that, watch what happens on this drug. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And this is, again, it’s terrible because this drug has been listed on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines. This is essential for many people.
Mike Papantonio: To live.
Farron Cousins: To live. And the Biden administration, knowing that we already created this drug, the drug company did not, my taxes paid for it. Your taxes paid for it. We’ve all in this country already paid for this drug and they’re still charging us, they didn’t list the exact number, but we are the highest price on the planet to buy this specific drug. If you get prostate cancer in Europe or you get it in South America, you’re gonna get this drug at a reasonable price that is not gonna send you to the poorhouse.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So, oh my God. We’ve talked nice about Reagan. We’ve talked bad about Bill Clinton. We’ve talked bad about Biden because he has a long history of signing up with the drug companies. So when you unsubscribe, feel free to do that because that’s what this show is about. We don’t take sides. We call balls and strikes. If it’s Democrat, we’re gonna call it. If it’s Republican, we’re gonna call it. So feel free, we’re gonna be okay without you, I promise you. Thanks for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
