COLUMBUS, OHIO — Patients For Affordable Drugs (P4AD), a bipartisan national patient organization, endorsed HB 479, a bill to prohibit secretive contracts by drug corporation middlemen that keep Ohio patients in the dark about their prescription drug prices.

Patients For Affordable Drugs brought together Ohio residents Saturday in Columbus for a training focused on how to effectively organize, mobilize, and fight for lower drug prices.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patients For Affordable Drugs Executive Director, Ben Wakana, issued the following statement regarding the Trump Administration’s plans to introduce tariffs on key drug ingredients.

“For an administration that wants to lower drug prices, this would do the exact opposite. We are eager to read the comprehensive set of recommendations the administration promised to release in the next few weeks, but the tariffs announced yesterday would be a step in the wrong direction. It’s a tax that would raise prices on prescription drugs.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patients For Affordable Drugs Executive Director, Ben Wakana, issued the following statement regarding the announcement that Aetna plans to pass drug rebates to consumers:

“The recent changes announced by Aetna and United will offer some relief to about 10.5 million people — 3 percent of the U.S. population. These announcements are designed to protect secret and often anti-competitive practices of PBMs and insurers. Rebates fail to lower list drug prices which millions of Americans are forced to pay.

A new Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll found an overwhelming 72 percent of people think the drug industry has too much influence in Washington, outpolling Wall Street and the gun lobby.

I'm Pam Holt, and I have cancer. I had to take on $10,000 in debt to pay for Revlimid. But, I told myself, the company needed this money for research. I was wrong. This is what I just did about it: