Gilbert Gutknecht: “I do not think anyone should be censored, but I think having no information can sometimes be better than having bad…”

“I do not think anyone should be censored, but I think having no information can sometimes be better than having bad information. And what the Council of Economic Advisers did was they took lock, stock, and barrel failed research. Then it gets repeated and repeated and repeated, this $800 million figure. According to the pharmaceutical company themselves, that $800 million figure includes $400 million of opportunity costs. That means they could have taken that money and bought Microsoft shares and made more money. That is ridiculous. Mr. Chairman, just read this report that I will include for the Record by Dr. Donald Light. He is from New Jersey. He teaches at a little school called Princeton. He also teaches at the Princeton medical school. He is the one who went through this. More importantly, in this 2-page report there are almost a page of footnotes. They document what they do. The problem with the Council of Economic Advisers is they just took this number and they repeated it. They do not document it. They do not ask questions, and so now everyone is running around saying it cost $800 million to develop a new drug. That is not true, and it is worse than having no information at all.…”