More Big Pharma astroturfing in Ohio

Big Pharma keeps on taking a beating in the public policy arena with Trump now rolling out Most Favored Nation deals cut with medium-sized companies who swore they didn’t have the finances to take that particular hit and the industry late last year having polled with Gallup as the second least-popular in America, right behind the federal government.

The industry is also still locked in a bunch of state-level fights about 340B drug discount program protections, and it looks like Ohio will be ground zero for all that in 2027 with the anti-340B opeds starting to roll out yet again.

As usual, none of this is legitimately grassroots-driven (or grassroots-engaging). It’s all astroturf executed through clever, altruistic, “for-the-greater-good” nonprofits.

This week, it’s the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Ohio’s turn. They ran this oped in the Akron Beacon Journal.

The goal is to get Akron readers thinking “wow, 340B is bad for mental health.”

But a quick glance at who funds the National Alliance on Mental Illness gives the game away. Who are these utterly selfless advocates for mental illness treatment? And why do they care about 340B?

Because they’re funded up the wazoo by Big Pharma companies that loathe the 340B program. Specifically, AbbVie has been especially litigious in this realm.

And who is listed on the “Corporate & Strategic Partnerships” page of the National Alliance’s website? AbbVie and the AbbVie Foundation.

Obviously, the Pharma industry, and the National Alliance, are gambling on everyone who reads this being too lazy to pull up their website or run it through ChatGPT. And they’re probably right. It certainly looks like Tess Bennett and Cheryl Powell at the Beacon Journal didn’t bother before they ran this astroturf nonsense.

But it is continually amazing how drugmakers cannot find a single, legitimate grassroots supporter of their position really anywhere in the country, and especially not in the Rustbelt or Appalachia. Virtually every time you open the proverbial hood even a quarter of an inch, Big Pharma money just comes flowing out.

Ho hum. The more things change, the more they stay the same.