Thread by @doctorow

Oh, @GileadSciences. No sooner do you stop demanding corporate welfare to help you price-gouge on a covid drug developed at public expense; then you step in a pile of greedy dogshit again, and insist it tastes great and we should try it!

pluralistic.net/2020/04/19/sha…

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At issue: your decision to charge Americans $3,000 for a five-day course of #remdesivir, a drug developed with public money that experts say you could profitably sell for $10.

icer-review.org/wp-content/upl…

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Now, this isn't all your fault. We can (and should) also blame the finance-friendly, pharma-dependent politicians, many of the Democrats, who paved the way for this, as @davidsirota reminds us.

sirota.substack.com/p/gilead-is-pr…

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There's a bipartisan consensus on blocking the reinstatement of a rule that would require pharma companies to charge a fair price for drugs developed at public expense.

senate.gov/legislative/LI…

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In 2016, Obama blocked Democratic Congressional calls to enforce the existing laws against pharma price-gouging.

thehill.com/policy/healthc…

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In 2020, GOP Senators blocked reforms that would have allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices, something that (incredibly) they are currently prohibited from doing, forced to pay whatever price pharma companies name

thehill.com/policy/healthc…

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This rare bipartisan unity on transfering public funds to lazy, monopolistic pharma giants is hard to understanding. Maybe its the millions of dollars that pharma companies give to both Republican and Democratic campaigns?

khn.org/news/drugmaker…

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The result is that Americans - who financed the R&D for remdesivir - will pay more for it than anyone else in the world.

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Your $29m/year CEO Daniel O'Day earned every penny when he published an open letter defending this practice, on the basis that the US system is unique in the world.

gilead.com/news-and-press…

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He's right! The US system is uniquely broken.

He should know.

He broke it.

eof/