Rep. Joe Wilson (R: Columbia, SC) — actual name Addison Graves Wilson Sr. — received 40% of his campaign money from PACs. Wilson yelled “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during the President’s address to Congress on health care reform.

Joe Wilson voted for illegal migrants’ healthcare before he was against, took drug company campaign contributions, and sponsored an earmark to give taxpayers’ money to a pharmaceutical industry project.

Wilson’s top donors include major drug companies: Astrazeneca Pharmaceuticals, Glaxosmithkline, Novartis, and Eli Lilly. Among his other corporate sector donors are lobbyists for insurance companies, the beer industry, auto dealers, and the defense industry.

In 2003, Rep. Wilson voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. This landmark legislation provides seniors and individuals with disabilities with a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. But it has also been criticized for securing “big benefits for Big Pharma & the private insurance industry at the expense of real benefits for seniors.”

The 2003 act, for which Wilson voted under President George W. Bush, includes Section 1011 authorizing $250,000 annually of taxpayer money to reimburse hospitals for treatment of illegal immigrants. In 2009, after Pres. Obama stepped into office, Wilson changed to his current position opposing public funds for healthcare of illegal immigrants.

In fiscal 2008 Rep. Wilson requested an earmark of $285,000 to be under the Labor-HHS-Education bill on behalf of Communi Care, Inc., headquartered in Columbia, SC.Columbia (this was one of his smallest earmark requests, near the bottom of the list). Communicare Inc operates in the pharmaceuticals industry. The requested taxpayers’ money, which was knocked down to $277,000, was earmarked for “health information systems, facilities, and equipment.”

Communicare.us, the company’s official website, carries a press release announcing that the company has been renamed Welvista. They changed their name when they expanded beyond South Carolina.

The company had already begun approaching free medical clinics for the working poor in other states, such as Raleigh Rescue Mission in Raleigh, NC in 2008, to offer “a pilot program to deliver free prescription medications to the uninsured and underinsured, utilizing North Carolina’s free clinic network.”

Projects like these must be a blessing to the free clinics and to patients who have run out of options to obtain medicines. But Joe Wilson could have asked for that earmarked money to go directly to help fund a public free medical clinic in his state.

Unlike the charitable free clinic networks themselves, Welvista’s distribution of pharmaceutical companies’ breadcrumbs is designed to leverage corporate benefits. Drug companies receive tax breaks for distributing drugs as charitable donations. The companies may also benefit from relief of some of the public pressure for lower drug prices and medical and drug insurance coverage for all.

No one knows yet whether this system, which has existed for many years, actually has any effect on public demand for health care reform overall. An even more important question is whether the drugs donated are the best drugs for the conditions treated at the free clinics.

These are some of the well-known drugs sold by companies that donated to Joe Wilson. I will try to find out if any of these drugs are donated to Welvisa and made available to uninsured or underinsured patients through the free clinics’ system:

Astrazeneca makes Zoladex, a chemical-castration drug widely prescribed to prostate cancer patients on androgen blockade therapy.

In any event, these are some of the products made for prostate cancer patiuents by Joe Wilson’s leading donors:

AstraZeneca makes Zoladex, one of 2 leading rival medical-castration drugs used in androgen-deprivatiuon therapy for prostate cancer. Zoladex is covered by Medicare but may be unaffordable for anyone who is too young for Medicare and without any other good health insurance.

AstraZeneca also makes Casodex, an androgen-uptake blocking drug used in treatment of prostate cancer with or without first-line blockade by Zoladex or equivalent drugs.

Glaxosmithkline makes Avodart, another androgen-blockade drug used preventively, to reduced the risk of prostate cancer, as well as in treatment of recurrence of prostate cancer.

Novartis makes Zometa, used to prevent osteoporosis and reduce spread of bone metastatis in men and women with prostate or breast cancer.

Eli Lilly makes Gemzar, a chemotherapy drug sometimes used to treat advanced prostate cancer if taxanes have failed, more used for lung, breast, pancreatic and ovarian cancer. In 2008 Gemzar had worldwide sales of $1.7 billion.

Raleigh Rescue Mission of North Carolina Medical Clinic

Addison Graves Wilson: You are NO Joe. TPM blog.
September 12, 2009