I just want to clear up a couple things in this thread. I'm not sure why Susie posts about the Democrats passing this or how much money Pharma companies are giving Democrats. This isn't a bipartisan thing by any means and Republicans also receive big donations from Pharma and were a large part of "passing" the piece referred to in this thread.
The thing that was "passed" was an amendment to the health care bill (which has not been passed)--so nothing is law yet. This amendment would give bio drugs a 12 year patent rather than a 7 year patent. It was voted on by the committee it came out of and 10 of 36 Democrats voted against it but only 1 of 23 Republicans voted against it. So I'm not sure why this is "the Democrats going head and passing". A larger percentage of Republicans voted for this. There was a competing amendment (H.R. 1427) which was much less favorable to the drug companies. That bill has only 11 sponsors and 10 of them are democrats. Just fyi, Gleevec is not a "bio" drug but it has a long patent period as an "orphan drug". Gleevec has about 14 years of patent. Bio drugs are generally more expensive to make. Interferon is a bio drug. There really is a ton of money pouring into congress from both Pharma and insurance companies, and they aren't discriminating between parties. And I too think that those funds have way too much influence. We've become a country that protects corporations (who can afford to lobby) at the expense of the average person. I heard yesterday that there are currently 6 health industry people lobbying for every congressperson. They are also spending a ton on advertisements and they are likely loving all the misinformation going around. It appears to be working. Dorothy On Aug 15, 2009, at 1:53 PM, DAWN RODEGHIER wrote: > Suzieq: Now you surly don't think they would make us pay more for a > longer period of time so they could collect money for doing it to us > do you! (LOL) Jim Rodeghier > > And, before closing this post.....heard in the news again earlier > about the Democrats going ahead & > passing the 12 years that the big drug companies are wanting in place > to "re-coup" their "billions" of > dollars spent on researching & developing the "bio" drugs such as > Gleevec instead of the 7 years that > Pres. Obama wanted..........would be nice to see how much money goes > into all the Democrats voting > yes for the 12 years from the lobbying Pharmaceutical > companies.....huh? > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ [CMLHope] A support group of http://cmlhope.com ------------------------------------------------- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CMLHope" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/CMLHope -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
