Action Alert: Drug-Patent Bill Could Cost Patients $3 Billion+; Hearing July 1

H.R. 1598, a bill to extend the patent on Claritin and a half dozen other drugs, is scheduled for a hearing July 1 in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. Ralph Nader's Public Citizen has estimated that H.R. 1598 will cost the public as much as $3.2 billion for Claritin alone. The bill is asking for a patent extension delaying generic-drug competition by up to three years, to remedy "consequences unintended by Congress" in legislation enacted in 1984, which may have caused delays in FDA approval of the drugs.

While this bill does not affect AIDS drugs, activists fear that it could serve as a precedent when AIDS drugs go off patent during the coming years. In addition, the politics around this bill is a grimly fascinating example of Washington at work.

According to the Campaign for Fair Pharmaceutical Competition, "Our biggest problem at this time [is that] Schering is sparing no expense to push the extension through. The company has hired former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, Linda Daschle (the current Senate Minority Leader's wife), four other former members of Congress, and more than a dozen other lobby and PR firms to make it happen. Worse, Schering recruited Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), a staunch consumer advocate in Congress and a physician, to introduce the bill (surprise, surprise...Schering is now Rep. McDermott's second largest contributor--and number one corporate contributor--even though the company has no operations in his state!) Schering has also recruited 32 other members of Congress as cosponsors of the bill, including Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a founding member of the Gray Panthers and previously a foe of big brand drug company rip-offs."

Opponents have organized a "Buy Jim Back" campaign, getting people to send $1 each to McDermott to "buy him back" from Schering-Plough, which, according to the Campaign for Fair Pharmaceutical Competition, contributed $7,762.


For more information:

A report on HR 1598 by Ralph Nader's organization Public Citizen is available at http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=417

The text of HR 1598, and its current status, can be obtained online from the Library of Congress, http://thomas.loc.gov/.

The Campaign for Fair Pharmaceutical Competition can provide a list of the 15 members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property; call Brad Cameron at 888-966-3303. Before July 1 it is important to let members of the Subcommittee know that the public is paying attention to this bill.

Note: The Campaign for Fair Pharmaceutical Competition is coordinated by National Grassroots & Communication, a Washington D.C. public-relations company which offers "coalition management" and "grassroots organizing," among other services (see "Deforming Consent: The Public Relations Industry's Secret War on Activists," by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton. The Campaign includes Mylan Laboratories Inc. (a generic pharmaceutical manufacturer), and ten to 15 local senior and consumer organizations in each of several Congressional districts. According to The Star-Ledger (a New Jersey newspaper) of July 21, 1998, Mylan started its own lobbying arm, then called the Coalition for Fair Pharmaceutical Competition, and was at that time its only member ("Generic-Drug Price Hikes Incite Probe," by Edward R. Silverman, staff writer).

[According to National Grassroots & Communication, the Gray Panthers and others were present at the press conference when the Coalition was announced, so Mylan was not the only member. And the "National Grassroots & Communication" described in the Stauber and Rampton article was not them, since the current company only bought the name, not the company, from a previous owner!]

None of which changes the fact that HR 1598 has no purpose except to transfer billions of dollars from patients and the public to some of the world's richest corporations.