It's already been a long news week, and it's Tuesday night. Between following domestic espionage, torture, ANWR, my brain is already stretched thin. Especially combined with the unrelenting strain of fighting the war on Christmas.
But I want to ask just a little bit more of my fellow denizens of Dailykos. Either tomorrow or Thursday, depending on if Senator Reid is able to delay, the Senate will vote on the Defense Department appropriations conference report. Included in the report -- snuck in under cover of night, in fact -- are provisions granting billions of dollars worth of benefits to big drug manufacturers. The provisions, championed by Frist, were actually added to the conference report AFTER Democrats signed off. Democrats had to go back and amend their signatures.
We need some attention on this issue. Details below.
Around 11:00 Sunday night, the House-Senate Conference Committee negotiations were under way on the Defense Department appropriations bill. A few compromises were reached, and the conferees signed off, sending the report to the House for a vote.
Sometime between the signing and the House vote, Bill Frist and Denny Hastert added over 45 pages to the legislation, including a huge handout to to drug manufacturers. Their insertion, called the "
Drug Company Protection Act" by critics, would grant incredibly broad immunity from lawsuits to drug companies, at the unreviewable discretion of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. At a whim, the Secretary would be able to declare lawsuits against drug companies null and void.
The Republicans actually blamed the new language on an "administrative snafu...that led to much confusion."
Abuse of Process. In addition to the betrayal of Democrats on the conference committee, the provision should never have been considered there in the first place. First, it's non-germane to the appropriations bill. It could never pass on its own, so they tried to tack it onto a popular bill. Second, it's new material introduced during conference. Before the Republicans so lowered the bar, those abuses of power would have been considered outrageous.
Unjust. The bill subjects veterans and first responders to absurd health risks. If provisions in the Biodefense law are invoked, Bush could force unsafe medical treatments on first responders around the country. For anyone who's followed the smallpox vaccine scandals, this would be a familiar betrayal. The civil justice system and the market are the only incentives drug manufacturers have to safely test their products, and both are missing with the troops -- they're forced to take the vaccines, and they're denied the opportunity to sue for damages.
Conflicts of Interest Senator Frist owns as much as $150,000 worth of stock in companies that will directly benefit from his legislation. 41 other Senators own pharmaceutical stock, and they'll all feel their votes in their portfolios. Rumsfeld most of all (did everybody know he owns millions of dollars worth of stock in Tamiflu's sole patent holder? Why do I feel like I'm the last to learn these things?). It'd be nice to be able to vote myself such a nice Christmas present.
Unnecessary. The supposed purpose of the legislation is to provide an incentive for drug companies to invest in vaccines. They are already doing so, however -- they see profit, as "industry experts now expect vaccines to show accelerated growth in coming years."
Overbroad. The immunity grant applies to any "countermeasures" the Secretary of Health and Human Services thinks may be necessary to deal with a public health emergency. And the Secretary gets to decide when a disease or condition a public health emergency -- he can even grant immunity if "there is a credible risk that the disease, condition, or threat may in the future constitute" an emergency. There is literally no drug that escapes the scope of this legislation.
If this law passes, no one may ever be able to sue a drug company again. If they were serious about stimulating vaccine development, they'd welcome a debate on the idea and they'd target the policy. It's clear that this is just back-door "tort reform."