The Raid on Remdesivir
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Politicians want to confiscate a treatment saving Covid patients.
As coronavirus cases have spread through the South and West, the good news is the lower death toll than in New York and East Coast states in the spring. One reason is better treatments such as Gilead’s anti-viral drug remdesivir, but powerful progressives now want the government to set prices for and even confiscate the Covid-19 treatment.
Six Senate Democrats including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders said in a letter last week to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar that the Trump Administration “acquired its supply of remdesivir at an exorbitant cost” in a deal that allows Gilead Sciences to reap “windfall revenues” that are paid “by increased premiums for American families.”
Their complaint is false. But it’s worth dissecting in some detail because it shows the left’s sweeping plan for the government to control drug prices and even pharmaceutical manufacturing.
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