21st Century Cures Act is only a ‘cure’ for Big Pharma

Forget the bickering and the party politics. And ignore everything the mainstream media has been telling you about how our deeply divided Congress can’t get anything done.

Because when it comes to giving drug companies and medical device makers a billion-dollar handout, it looks like our politicians have finally found something they can agree on.

The 21st Century Cures Act just zipped out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee with a unanimous 51-0 vote. One representative even called the committee meeting a “love fest.”

But I’m guessing the drug companies are going to love this bill a lot more than you will.

We recently told you how the 21st Century Cures Act would shorten FDA review time on new drugs, raise drug prices and strip the FDA of whatever power it has left to regulate the industry.

But Congress was just getting started.

Because when the 21st Century Cures Act left the E&C committee it contained some dangerous provisions you need to know about. And if it passes, we’ll never hear another word about Big Pharma’s million-dollar payouts to doctors — and you could lose forever your right to be protected from unproven drugs and devices.

                                                             Mum’s the new word

Representative Fred Upton, chair of the E&C committee and sponsor of this Big Pharma wish list, must be pleased as punch. It’s the first time a major bill has passed the committee without a single “nay” vote.

And all that means is that there were 51 members of Congress who decided to continue cashing drug company campaign checks instead of standing up for you.

For example, the 21st Century Cures Act would now completely gut the Physician Payment Sunshine Act — something that the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen calls one of the bill’s “most troubling” parts.

The Sunshine Act finally exposed the fortune in cash and perks that hospitals and doctors are taking in from Big Pharma. It told the sordid tale of so-called speaking trips to tropical islands, educational programs held at Hooters, and cash payments made to docs to cheerlead for some of the most dangerous drugs on the market.

And if the 21st Century Cures Act passes, drug and device companies would never have to report a dime spent on these “educational” gifts ever again.

Another part of the 21st Century Cures Act would allow drugmakers to dump the “gold standard” in drug testing called Phase III clinical trials when bringing a new antibiotic to the FDA for approval. The bill would strong-arm the FDA into agreeing — in writing — that further testing on whether the drugs are safe or effective will be the exception, not the rule.

Worse still, the bill would practically force hospitals to prescribe you these new and unproven antibiotics. There’s a provision that would actually pay bonus bucks to hospitals when they use these new meds!

As we should have learned from our past mistakes, the more antibiotics are used — and abused — the more likely it is that bacteria will become immune, creating more deadly superbugs. Getting a big tip for overusing antibiotics — especially new ones — is about as sensible as locking the barn after the cow runs off.

And not only will dangerous drugs be rushed to market at the speed of light, but so will high-risk medical devices.

The bill would allow “case histories” from medical journals (something that could be a simple anecdote about just one patient) to be the sole data submitted to the FDA for approval of a risky device. In just the past year alone we’ve seen power morcellators that can spread uterine cancer and surgical scopes harboring the deadly CRE superbug.

And now, if the 21st Century Cures Act passes, new medical devices would get even less scrutiny than these morcellators and scopes received.

The more I see of this bill the more obvious it is that the 21st Century Cures Act is designed to be healthy for one thing and one thing alone.

And that’s the bottom line of the entire mainstream medical establishment.
Sources:

“Will the 21st Century Cures bill lower standards for some drug approvals?” Ed Silverman, May 29, 2015, The Wall Street Journal, blogs.wsj.com
“Public Citizen joins coalition urging Congress to withhold support for 21st Century Cures act” Public Citizen, May 21, 2015, citizen.org