Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston
Globe
July 23, 2000, Sunday ,THIRD EDITION
SECTION: NEW HAMPSHIRE WEEKLY; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 964 words
HEADLINE:
NEW HAMPSHIRE WEEKLY / ROYAL FORD Royal Ford is a member of the Globe staff. His
e-mail address is ford@globe.com;
GREGG RIDER IS NOT GOOD FOR WHAT AILS US
BYLINE: BY ROYAL FORD, GLOBE STAFF
BODY:
Ford, writes Cyrus Cloud, this time in tiny
print on the back of the narrow receipt from his monthly buy of
drugs down at the CVS - a buy which in June totaled
$699.57.
This Gregg fella we sent down to the US Senate
has got me riled. Looks to me like he cares more about keeping
drugs profitable than he does about those of us back home who
have to buy them.
(At 115 and suffering from
various infirmities that make his treks in the Willys from the Black North in
Acworth less frequent, Cyrus knows about the cost of drugs. But
don't we all. I read in that paper you write for where our
esteemed rich senator is pulling all sorts of strange strings down in the Senate
to make sure Columbia University keeps making millions off a
drug deal and, if he gets his way, they keep making the
millions and we pay for it.
Now I'm no writer, so I'll use your buddy
Ron Rosenberg's words just as he wrote 'em: "Columbia officials say they are
seeking a 15-month extension on the patent,
which was granted in 1983 and covers a key manufacturing process for using
animal cells to produce proteins used as drugs."
Now
it's my understanding Columbia has already cashed in to the tune of
$280 million on this patent and they'll get
another $150 million if Gregg wins this battle for them.
Now I know Senator Gregg went to Columbia, but I don't see why he's
ready to spend so much energy to help that New York school get its millions
while our own university here pays professors poorly, our kids pay big tuition
to go there, and good God, we can't even afford a college baseball team.
And I guess the good senator hasn't spent much time waiting in line at
the CVS and seen seniors hand over their Social Security checks to buy the
drugs they need just to keep moving forward. I'd like to get a
glimpse at his health plan. Better yet, I'd like to get a look at his stock
portfolio and go sniffing in there for drugs.
Your pal
Rosenberg says Gregg has got others in Congress and consumer groups, as well as
drug companies that use the patent, mad at
him. Seems to me, the good citizens of New Hampshire ought to get in that line.
Rosenberg writes that the Columbia patent expires in
August and that Gregg has been in a veritable dervish trying to help Columbia
get its patent extended. And what a dervish it has been.
You know, Ford, this is what we all hate about Washington. Senator can't
drum up support for a bill he wants, so he attaches it to some other bill that
folks either really want or have to pass anyway.
He's tried to hook it
on to an overall spending bill that Rosenberg describes as a "must pass" bill,
meaning, if I get it right, that the House and Senate have both passed it and a
committee has got to iron out the differences in what they passed so the whole
thing can pass.
Somehow, Gregg decided one difference was this: no extra
$150 million for Columbia. Not that it was in either chamber's
bill in the first place, so I guess a cynic might say, "Now there's a glaring
difference."
He's also tried to hook this $150 million
wagon to an agriculture bill (is a petri dish considered farmable land?) and and
a military spending bill (What's right for Columbia is right for our troops).
Thirty-three companies have paid Columbia $280 million
in royalties to use this drug manufacturing process in the past
12 years. Last year alone, Rosenberg says right there in his story, Columbia
took in $100 million on the deal. Now I understand, Ford, that
when you invent something you ought to get a patent on it and
turn a nice profit.
But when the patent is up, it's
time to move on and let the idea circulate for free in the public domain.
That's good for the consumer.
I see where Gregg has said he's
protecting us against the drug companies by making sure the
money keeps flowing to Columbia. I, sir, beg to differ.
If you have just
a few companies making, say, a heart ailment drug and they've
got to pay royalties even before they get down to the actual production costs,
that gives you one set of prices.
If you open the field - and
competition - and don't keep out other companies that maybe can't afford the
royalties but can now get into the game, then the consumer gets a better deal.
How much do you think penicillin or polio vaccine would cost these days
if some rich university held the patent?
And it's not
even like Columbia's patent is on a specific
drug, Ford. Seems to me they invented a way to prepare the
garden and other folks are using that method to grow better crops. The
government has given patent extensions to companies for
specific drugs - if they've lost patent time
while the drug got tied up in federal government regulatory
action - or inaction.
I can see where that makes sense. But this isn't a
specific drug and it's a process that can be used to make many,
many drugs. Make them in a competitive setting and those of us
forking over what money we've got will get to hang on to some of that money.
"This is a classic example of backroom dealing," Frank Clemente, honcho
down there at the Public Citizens Congress Watch, told your Globe pal. "This
secretly added provision would be a windfall to Columbia University at the
expense of consumers."
I see in Rosenberg's story where even Ted Kennedy
and John McCain agree on this one.
Think of your parents' prescription
bills, your own prescription bills, and read this piece of a letter these two
senators helped write to others in Congress.
"At the end of the day,
this provision's main effect will be to increase drug prices.
Breast cancer patients, heart and stroke patients, people with multiple
sclerosis or other debilitating diseases are the ones who will pay" for Judd
Gregg's willingness to help his poor old alma mater.
LOAD-DATE: July 23, 2000 
