Peter Welch

The question for us here, and for the American people, is, why, when we had the best plan, we had the worst execution?

The Johns Hopkins study that said that the U.S. had the best preparedness, it turned out we have the worst response.

This fierce virus can be managed if done correctly, correct?

Your job, our job, is to protect the American people.

So, this is a--not a red state blue state type of deal. We are all in this together and, in fact, if we are not in it together, we will all get sick together.

The two essential things are testing and the social distancing or quarantine or separation

I say we ought to put that back in place. We got to be prepared in advance and I hope we could work together to do that.

If before this virus hit us, we had those tests in place, we had systems and backup plans in place, that is where you get the head start to keep that curve lower.

The question for us now is what can we do and how best do we do it

I just want to reiterate, why in the world wouldn't we be transparent. What have we got to hide?

Let's give the benefit of the doubt to those who served.

Why not have the burden of proof be on the government to show that it is not caused by a service-connected event, as opposed to put the burden on the individuals when they don't have any capacity whatsoever to accumulate the information.

I mean, men and women in uniform they show up for duty and it is up to the command--it is really up to the military to make certain that there is not unnecessary risk, including health risk.

So as far as you are concerned, if you felt there was authority under the law for insulin to be included, you would see no reason to object to that.

Drug importation, we are very happy that you are proceeding on that...

That would be huge, huge, huge for the Governor of Vermont, and for the people of Vermont.

So if we did an amendment to the statute to allow for insulin to be an exception, you would be supportive of that, it sounds like.

I hope we can move forward on this just so that we give integrity to whatever the label is.

All we are asking the FDA to do in this bill, Madam Chair, is to enforce the labeling rules that already exist and they may need a nudge with legislation saying that we need them to do their job.

A label is a label. And as Scott Gottlieb said when he was still in that position, if it is not lactation, then a nut, a seed, these other products that can be good, do not meet the definition of a dairy product.

I just want to strongly endorse this bipartisan legislation that would try to start addressing this abuse on pricing powered by pharma.

I am asking a simple, straightforward question and you are telling me you will get back to me.

You want to check with somebody now, use your phone? Tell us what Johnson & Johnson's position is on whether this is an abuse of the orphan drug status?

I do strongly support 4712, H.R. 4712, because it would take steps to begin to close loopholes.

That is certainly as I see it.