Tom Marino, Amerisourcebergen, and the Manufactured Opioid Crisis (Congress, generations, ethics)

[thedirtypirate]

First things first, a little background.

AmerisourceBergen is a Chesterbrook, PA company that is one of the three big drug distributors in the US responsible for around 90% of drugs that make it to consumers (Cardinal Health and McKesson the other two).

AmerisourceBergen’s profits are unbelievable and they are currently listed 34th on the Global Fortune 500 list of largest corporations.

Tom Marino is a PA Congressman representing the 10th district, the northern part of NEPA. Until this morning, Marino seemed primed to become head of the Federal Government’s Office Of National Drug Control Policy as Trump had nominated him for the position.

The problem with Marino is that he is the definition of an industry shill and responsible for pushing a law for years in congress that effectively stripped the DEA’s power away from prosecuting drug distributors like AmerisourceBergen.

Marino took hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions from various drug companies to continue the pill mill operation that has made a few rich and killed tens of thousands more.

Former DEA Agents are now whistle blowing and coming forth with information about how so many drugs have flooded our streets. It was the distributors, sending out tens of millions of Percocet and other opioids illegally.

As one congressman put it, putting Marino up as the drug czar would literally be putting the Fox in charge of the hen house.

The fallout is just beginning. Marino removed himself from consideration this morning. Bills are being put in place to reverse what Marino’s bill did.

What are people’s thoughts? How do you feel that our Congressman and our companies are responsible for the worst epidemic in generations all for greed and power?

Should Marino step down from Congress?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...sed/771133001/

[NewtownBucks]

Trump appointing industry shills to dismantle all forms of government oversight of business is certainly nothing new. LOL.

[blazerj]

Well, PA elected Trump so...

[Wells5]

The predecessors to Marino were tainted as well. Joe McDade the long serving Scranton congressman and bringer of largesse to NEPA (including Steam Town), who died only a couple of weeks ago on Sept. 24, was indicted for taking bribes from defense contractors. He went to trial but was acquitted.


Don Sherwood of Tunkhannock, who succeeded McDade, agreed to an unspecified monetary settlement in a $5.5 lawsuit brought by a woman who claimed that he abused her over a 5 year period. He was beaten in the next general by democrat Chris Carney who claimed to live in Montrose. Carney only served 2 terms.


We are governed by a corrupt duopoly, which is controlled by special interests. Marino was just playing the game.

[thedirtypirate]

Right on cue, the CEO spoke today at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Feeling opioid heat, drug distributor's CEO justifies painkiller system

Steven Collis told 1,500 members of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia that all 20,000 people who work at his Chesterbrook-based company — including 1,150 in Chesterbrook, Conshohocken, Valley Forge and Thorofare, N.J. — considered the story “one-sided.”
“We want to tell our side of the story,” about the “most heavily regulated” U.S. industry, after nuclear power, and maybe banks, said Collis, a native of South Africa.
He reminded the crowd of the drugs’ importance as painkillers for cancer and hospice patients. (Read it in its entirety on his LinkedIn page, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/surprising-morality-opioid-distribution-steve-collis/)

It's worth mentioning that they just got sentenced to pay a quarter Billion dollar fine for mislabeling cancer drugs 3 weeks ago too.

AmerisourceBergen to pay $260 million for distributing misbranded drugs

As part of its guilty plea, AmerisourceBergen Specialty Group has agreed to pay a $208 million criminal fine, plus $52 million in criminal forfeiture. It will also maintain a compliance and ethics program designed to increase accountability and transparency, requiring corporate board members to annually review the effectiveness of the company's compliance program and maintain a hotline that will process complaints about any improper practices.

[pman]

Not exactly unbelievable profit margins.
https://ycharts.com/companies/ABC/gross_profit_margin

[thedirtypirate]

Originally Posted by pman

Not exactly unbelievable profit margins.
https://ycharts.com/companies/ABC/gross_profit_margin

Ha you sound like the CEO. When your revenue is $150bn, I don’t think having a 3% profit margin is so bad especially when you are suppose to be in business to make people healthy, at least according to him.

All in all, if Marino is any indication of the direction the war on opioids is going to go, I don’t see it ending anytime soon.

[pman]

Originally Posted by thedirtypirate

Ha you sound like the CEO. When your revenue is $150bn, I don’t think having a 3% profit margin is so bad especially when you are suppose to be in business to make people healthy, at least according to him.

All in all, if Marino is any indication of the direction the war on opioids is going to go, I don’t see it ending anytime soon.

Warehousing and distribution is a volume business with low margins. There's nothing wrong or unusual with that. Amerisource actually loses money on the name brand products because of the pricing power that pharma companies have

[toobusytoday]

Mod note - This thread is (reluctantly) moved to the POC forum from the Pennsylvania one, since the subject is much more of a national one.

[Goodnight]

Originally Posted by Wells5

The predecessors to Marino were tainted as well. Joe McDade the long serving Scranton congressman and bringer of largesse to NEPA (including Steam Town), who died only a couple of weeks ago on Sept. 24, was indicted for taking bribes from defense contractors. He went to trial but was acquitted.


Don Sherwood of Tunkhannock, who succeeded McDade, agreed to an unspecified monetary settlement in a $5.5 lawsuit brought by a woman who claimed that he abused her over a 5 year period. He was beaten in the next general by democrat Chris Carney who claimed to live in Montrose. Carney only served 2 terms.


We are governed by a corrupt duopoly, which is controlled by special interests. Marino was just playing the game.

Marino’s bill is the point of discussion not his predecessors, there was no need for this legislation. He was in the pocket of the drug companies and needs to explain why he wrote this bill.