Sherrod Brown: “My friend from Vermont mentions the drug companies. Now, the drug companies, how often in the newspapers or in TV or…”

“My friend from Vermont mentions the drug companies. Now, the drug companies, how often in the newspapers or in TV or radio shows do we hear, unless maybe they quote one of us, and there are not that many of us talking about that, that the drug industry is the most profitable industry in America for 20 years straight; that they pay the lowest tax rate in America for 20 years straight; that taxpayers do almost half of all the research and development on prescription drugs; that Canada's prices are one-half or one-third what they are in the United States; that we are the only country in the world that does not do something to regulate or lower or try to push down drug prices? Not one story ever, almost never a story about that. Rarely is there a story about why drugs are cheaper in Canada, what the Canadian Government does. Rarely is there a story about what the French or the British or the Germans or the Japanese or the Israelis do to get drug prices down. There are a lot of advertisements on all those stations about prescription drugs, about arthritis drugs, about asthma drugs, about cholesterol-reducing drugs; and all that stuff is good information for the public, but millions, actually billions, of dollars going into the pockets of these corporations that own the media and few if any stories about how the drug companies really rip off the American public.”