Tom Price Bought Pharma Stocks -- Then Lobbied for the Industry in Australia
By Eric Levitz
June 1, 2017
12:14 pm
There’s reason to believe that the head of Health and Human Services has committed multiple federal crimes. In another political era, this fact might generate weeks’ worth of cable news chyrons and buckets of spittle from talking heads. In the Trump era, it’s a footnote.
When the president of the United States is a literal con man who (ostensibly) confesses to obstruction of justice on the nightly news — and intimidates witnesses over Twitter — it’s hard to get too excited about the Health secretary’s alleged affinity for insider trading.
But excitement is warranted — because Tom Price’s blatant corruption grows more blatant by the day. And, unlike the president, Price can be held legally accountable for criminal behavior.
In March 2016, then-congressman Tom Price bought thousands of dollars of shares in six pharmaceutical companies, all of which had developed biological drugs (a.k.a. “biologics”) — medications grown from live cells.
The following month, Price pressured senior members of the Australian government to accept stronger monopoly rights for makers of biologics in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, according to a new report from ProPublica:
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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/price-bought-drug-stocks-then-lobbied-for-pharma-overseas.html
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