"I have come to learn that lobbying impacts many industries and sectors, including medicine, education, law, and politics. When it comes to the medical industry, lobbying can hurt physicians and patients, in a few ways. We see reports that the big pharma lobbying group known as PhRMA has spent as much as 300 million to defend higher prescription drug costs. As we know, unaffordable medication is a significant issue for many ill people in our country. One example of this impact is the outrage over Mylan's EpiPen prices in 2016. When Mylan purchased the rights to EpiPen in 2007, they gradually raised the list price from about 50 per auto-injector to over 600 for a two-pack. The move boosted EpiPen profits to 1.1 billion a year. Much of this was due to greedy pharma lobbying efforts directed at drug pricing and the limiting of generic competitors. After Trumps' speech in 2018 regarding the pending fall of pharmaceutical influence on drug prices, we have seen an uptick of big pharma pouring money into lobbying campaigns when it comes to laws surrounding prescription drug prices. Today, despite this surge in lobbying, we continue to see improvements on drug prices, and I look forward to tracking this topic of money, drugs, and government as my medical career further unfolds."
