President Bush's Corrupt Immunity Protection for Drug Companies

[thom danfield]

We are very upset about the inclusion of immunity protection for drug companies at the last minute by select members of the Senate who claim to be “Patriots” or “Civil Servants.” Clearly, both the substance and methodology of that last minute inclusion belie a far different reality.

These provisions were slipped into the conference report at midnight on Sunday. After many Senators and House members had already signed the conference report, Majority Leader Frist and Speaker Hastert privately conspired with the White House to add wholly new language containing the liability protections to the conference report.

In the end, the Frist-Hastert language survived due to the politics surrounding the must-pass nature of the defense spending bill, combined with the rush to get home for holidays. Are these the “family values” that the Bush administration is “pushing” in an attempt to hide the realities, the greed, and the arrogance at the core of such policies?

An end needs to be put on such procedures and practices; they are wrong and only serve to further alienate the populace in what is supposed to be a democracy. Surely Congress can do FAR better.