Opioid Epidemic

Floor Speech

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Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the need to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable for putting profits before the health and well-being of our people and our communities.

I know that my colleague, Senator Brown from Ohio, came to the floor earlier this week to call out bad actors in the pharmaceutical industry who have fueled our country's substance misuse crisis, and I am grateful for Senator Brown's leadership in calling attention to this issue, and I join him in the effort.

We are constantly learning more and more about the unconscionable ways that pharmaceutical companies fueled the substance misuse crisis-- a crisis that is killing more than 100 people a day in the United States.

Recent data released by the Drug Enforcement Administration showed that between 2006 and 2012, just 6 years, companies distributed 76 billion pills of oxycodone and hydrocodone throughout the country, including 290 million pills that were sent to New Hampshire, a State with only 1.3 million people. That works out to about 30 pills per person per year in the Granite State.

As they distributed those unfathomable amounts of opioids, pharmaceutical companies pushed these drugs with deceptive marketing tactics, despite the known risks of addiction, to maximize their profits. One of these tactics even included pushing the unproven concept of pseudoaddiction. This false claim asserted that patients showing signs of addiction weren't actually addicted but instead needed even higher doses of opioids. The solution that these scam artists pushed to address addiction was to encourage the prescribing of even more opioids. So instead of providing actual addiction treatment to those suffering from substance use disorder, some patients just received more drugs.

That kind of strategy enabled the pharmaceutical industry to dole out those billions of doses of opioids and profit enormously from it, leaving in their wake an opioid crisis that is devastating communities.

Outrageously, as they have aggressively pushed doctors to prescribe these opioids, a tax loophole has enabled Big Pharma to write off the cost of television ads that blanketed the airwaves, encouraging more and more people to seek opioids from their doctors for pain relief, oblivious to the harm that these drugs could do. I have joined with Senator Brown, as well as Senator Shaheen, on legislation to close that loophole and end taxpayer subsidies for drug ads, and I am going to continue to push for transparency from these companies.

In addition to the devastating impact that Big Pharma has had in fueling the substance misuse crisis, the industry has also hurt patients by massively increasing the cost of prescription drugs.

One of the top issues I hear about from people in New Hampshire is that affording lifesaving medications is becoming more and more out of reach, and high drug costs are too often forcing seniors and families to make agonizing decisions.

No one should have to decide between buying their prescriptions and heating their home or putting food on the table, but these are the types of choices Americans are devastatingly having to make, all the while big pharmaceutical companies are reporting profits that are higher than ever. We need to change this system, bring down costs, and hold Big Pharma accountable.

Last week, the Finance Committee moved forward with bipartisan legislation to begin to take on Big Pharma and lower prescription drug prices. This bill would cap out-of-pocket costs for seniors on Medicaid Part D and crack down on pharmaceutical companies that raise drug prices higher than inflation.

It is a really big deal that a bill to take on the pharmaceutical industry in a meaningful way advanced out of committee on a strong bipartisan vote. Pharma did everything they could to try to kill and weaken this bill in committee, and they will keep trying. I am really encouraged that we have gotten this far. That is no small accomplishment. We will continue working with colleagues from both sides of the aisle to get it across the finish line.

At the heart of the issue with Big Pharma is the blind pursuit of profits at the expense of people's health and wellbeing. Representatives from the pharmaceutical industry have told us often how important innovation is and how much innovation costs because they say they want to save lives and innovation is critically important.

In my own family, like so many across our country, medical innovation has been critical not only for saving life but to improve the quality of life. Our son Ben regularly has a compression vest that helps clear his lungs without the incredibly labor intensive respiratory therapy that we used to have to do. He is able to get nutrition through a feeding tube that runs smoothly, steadily through the night so that he can have the kind of nutrition he needs.

Innovation in pharmaceuticals have also helped Ben improve his quality of life, and the combination of pharmaceutical innovation and medical device innovation means that a baclofen pump inserted in Ben's abdominal cavity helps his muscles to relax.

But if innovation is about saving lives, then, how did we get to a point of crisis that started from the drugs that they produced? How did we get to a point where many patients can't even afford the lifesaving prescription that pharma promotes?

It seems that, at least for some pharmaceutical companies, they only want to save lives when it makes them money or when it gives them an excuse not to restrict their profits.

From the substance misuse crisis to the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs, this body has failed to hold Big Pharma accountable for far too long. That must change, and I am committed to working with anyone who is serious about finally acting to put patients first.

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