I am so relieved to read that Sen. Orrin Hatch “is no patsy when it comes to drug abuse, prescription or otherwise.” So obviously he just didn’t understand that the bill he pushed “stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most powerful tool for combating drug companies of spilling prescription pain pills outside the legal distribution chain.” (The Tribune, Oct. 17).
Of course he wouldn’t knowingly do that. Yes, he was among a handful of members of Congress forcing the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to this law that undermines efforts to stanch the flow of pain pills outside legal the distribution chain, and yes, it’s his job sitting on the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crimes and Drugs to know what the bill he pushes does.
Yes, the senator has received $991,909 from the pharmaceuticals/health products industries between his campaign committee and leadership PAC (2013-2018, Center for Responsive Politics). Yes, five pharmaceutical companies and the main trade association PhRMA donated $175,500 to his own charity, Utah Family Foundation. Yes, his son Scott (with the senator’s blessing) created a lobbying firm that lobbies for the diet supplement industry, the same industry that makes regular campaign donations to the senator and pays Scott’s lobbying firm millions. But, as he assured us at the time, Hatch wouldn’t do anything for Scott that isn’t right. Don’t look too close at the regulation of ephedra that killed at least 80 before it was required to publish warnings.
And yes, this is the same Orrin Hatch who co-authored the 1994 Hatch-Harkin law that helped the supplements industry fend off oversight by the Food and Drug Administration, dictating that the FDA must make the case for each supplement, proving that it is unsafe, not that the supplement makers must prove the supplement safe before they can put it in the marketplace.
Since he doesn’t understand any of this as poor judgment, I think we can’t trust his judgment. If he runs again, please vote no.
Nelda Bishop, Bountiful