Orin Hatch takes hundreds of thousands from big pharma, calls Marino report baloney
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) called a report that led Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) to withdraw as President Donald Trump’s “drug czar” nominee “complete baloney” on Wednesday. Given that Hatch himself has raked in hundreds of thousands in donations from pharmaceutical and health contributors over the years, his comments were hardly surprising.
The Washington Post report detailed a law that ultimately undermined the Drug Enforcement Authority’s (DEA) ability to go after drug distributors, which was sponsored by Marino in the House and by Hatch in the Senate.
In short, the bill made it more difficult for the DEA to stop drug distribution companies who were potentially supplying pills to doctors and pharmacists who then sold the drugs on the black market. While the DEA had been able to fine distributors making suspicious sales — often millions of pills at once — Hatch and Marino’s law made it nearly impossible for the DEA to freeze suspicious shipments, according to the Post.
According to the report, the bill was the result of aggressive lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry.
https://thinkprogress.org/hatch-marino-report-f399a97baa1e/
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