Trump Turns Big Pharma’s Advertising Against Them…

Now, not only will you hear how quickly this drug will make your eyes fall out, but now you can find out HOW MUCH IT WILL COST to make your eyes fall out…

By Kent Heckenlively, JD

Whenever you try to figure out Trump you always have to think about strategy.

Trump is a strategic thinker and he LIKES TO WIN!

My father moves in some of the same circles with people who know Trump, specifically the bankers who Trump needed when he was in financial distress.

“Trump was toast,” my father said the bankers told him when they had a meeting with Trump in the midst of his financial difficulties.  The bankers were ready to swoop in like vultures to rip apart the battered remains of the once proud Trump empire.  But according to the bankers, “Trump came in, he had a plan that none of us had even imagined, and by the time he was finished we were handing him the money he needed.”  That was more than a quarter of a century ago, and now Trump is president.

This story came from my father, who is not a Trump supporter.  In fact, when I visited my father in Palm Springs in 2015 I saw a new picture on the mantle of him with Jeb Bush.  Yes, I’m sure there was a sizable contribution involved.  “Jeb’s my guy,” he told me at the time.

Well, that didn’t quite work out.  My father still hasn’t warmed up to Trump, yet, although he does give him credit for his successes.

Like most in our community I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell Trump is thinking about Big Pharma.  One day he’s throwing a few of them in jail for the opioid epidemic and the next he’s telling people to get their measles shot.  What gives?

Then I saw the article from CNN…

Trump Administration to Require Drug Prices in TV Ads.  Is this the brilliant move I’ve been waiting to see?  From the article:

“Drug makers will have to start including the list price of medications in their television ads, the Trump administration announced Wednesday.

The move is the first rule implemented from the administration’s blueprint to lower drug costs, which was released a year ago.

“Requiring the inclusion of drugs’ list price in TV ads is the single most significant step any administration has taken toward a simple commitment: American patients deserve to know the prices of the healthcare they receive,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.”

Let’s war-game this, shall we?

Big Pharma spends an incredible amount of money advertising on the news networks.  By some estimates it may be up to 60% of the advertising revenue for a network.  That buys a lot of good-will, and lets you bury unfavorable stories.

As Tim Bolen has pointed out many times, we are the only country besides New Zealand which allows such direct to customer advertising of pharmaceutical products.

Not only does this money buy off the news networks, it gets the public on your side, and with the public, Congress does nothing.

Here’s Trump’s tweet about the new plan.

“Big announcement today: Drug companies have to come clean about their prices in TV ads. Historic transparency for American patients is here. If drug companies are ashamed of those prices—lower them!”  

What will the response be when those drug ads for Grandma’s arthritis medicine shows it costs a couple thousand dollars a month? 

Or that great drug which can get rid of the hepatitis C virus costs sixty-five thousand dollars for one course of treatment?

They say that you win the battle before the fighting begins by planning your attack.

I think the slaughter-meter for Big Pharma is at about 75 right now.  When we get it to 100, we will be able to turn BIG PHARMA into little pharma.

By Kent Heckenlively, JD

 

plagueheckiKent’s book PLAGUE was released by Skyhorse Publishing in 2014 and is now available in paperback. Skyhorse also publishes the work of Mo Yan, the 2012 recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature.The book is co-authored with Judy Mikovits PhD. It is an indictment of the “Fake Science” we find so prevalent in the US.

 

 

Kent Heckenlively is also the author of INOCULATED: How Science Lost its Soul in Autism, available on Amazon and at Barnes&Noble.com

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2 thoughts on “Trump Turns Big Pharma’s Advertising Against Them…”

  1. Really smart move on Trump’s part. I wish he’d done more on this issue and demanded an independent vaccine safety commission a couple years ago but I guess he’s starting his campaign and looking for a popular game-plan. We’ll see about his follow through.

  2. That was really fascinating. I will not be getting a measles shot and Im glad Trump plans to bring them down a notch. Since Gardasil is making one in four women infertile according to the latest report I read yesterday . I think these drugs should be yanked off the market instead the public school systems in many states are forcing the gardasil vaccine on young girls and boys. Its absolute medical tyranny . HPV or genital warts by the way is completely treatable naturally using wild oregano oil by mouth for a period of time. You will not hear that very many places. They have no need to vaccinate these kids,

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