Des Moines Register – 7/6/20

LTE by Logun Buckley, Alliance for Retired Americans, Waterloo

It is so upsetting to me to know that Big Pharma giants like Gilead are donating to Joni Ernst’s reelection bid. She has accepted thousands of dollars from Big Pharma donors this cycle, according to Kaiser Health News.

While Ernst votes to give giant pharmaceutical corporations monopoly control over life-saving medicines, gives them billions in tax cuts, and fills coronavirus relief bills with corporate slush funds, my mother is working at a restaurant with an oxygen tank strapped to her back. She was deemed essential and told that she wouldn’t be covered by unemployment. Ernst is on vacation right now. My mom is still at work.

While Ernst supports her donor Gilead’s price-gouging on Remdesivir, my grandmother gets sick from the metformin she uses to treat her diabetes because she can’t afford insulin. It is appalling to me to see how Ernst votes for the best interests of her donors and corporate sponsors, and not for the Iowans who need her to stand up for them.

You better believe that I am going to remember how Ernst sided with Big Pharma as people died from their price-gouging in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.