WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patients For Affordable Drugs Action announced its first round of state digital ads featuring real patients telling their stories and calling on voters to support candidates who will stand up to Big Pharma and fight to lower prescription drug prices. Ads launch today in Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, and Virginia and accompany a seven-figure national ad and grassroots campaign to push candidates on plans to lower drug prices.
“This is all part of a coordinated effort to mobilize voters who are fed up with high drug prices and who want to elect candidates who will enact reforms to rein in greedy drug corporations,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the president of Patients For Affordable Drugs Action. “These are not actors. They’re real people forced to choose between groceries and filling vital prescriptions. This issue is top-of-mind for the public. Americans will vote based on candidates’ records and stated plans for drug pricing relief.”
According to a survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted well into the COVID-19 pandemic, 7 out of 10 voters say a candidate's position on prescription drug prices will be an important factor in their vote.
These ads will run on digital platforms in the patients’ respective states and arrive on the heels of a national campaign kickoff this week that includes TV ads and grassroots patient advocacy, housed on the campaign's website. The campaign is aimed at enabling Americans to engage with candidates and demand plans to make drugs more affordable.
Featured in today’s ads are:
Patricia McKenzie, Lithonia, GA, type 2 diabetes: “People have to choose between eating and their medications. They have to choose between life and death. And that should not be a choice.”
Jacquie Persson, Waterloo, IA, Crohn’s disease: “If my husband and I were both to lose our employment because of the pandemic, I just can’t pay for my drugs anymore. You know, I’m not looking for handouts, I just want to be able to afford to stay healthy.”
Travis Paulson, Eveleth, MN, type 1 diabetes: “Since the pandemic has started, we’ve been forced to buy our medications and insulin at the extraordinary prices they charge here in the U.S.”
Heidi Kendall, Missoula, MT, chronic myeloid leukemia: “It’s scary to depend for my life on a drug that costs so much.”
Candice Brown, Alexandria, VA, ulcerative colitis: “I’ve been on Entyvio for the last year. The only caveat is it’s $6,700 a month. No one can afford that. This drug pricing system was not meant to benefit me as a patient. It was meant to benefit Big Pharma.”
Patients For Affordable Drugs Action is a political action committee founded to make sure politicians hear from real patients and not just the pharmaceutical industry political machine. Big Pharma spent $298.2 million lobbying in 2019 and donated $29.3 million to help elect politicians in the last election cycle. Patients For Affordable Drugs Action received principal funding from Action Now Initiative, LLC. Patients For Affordable Drugs Action is an independent organization and refuses funding from any organization that profits from the development or distribution of prescription drugs.
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Paid for by Patients For Affordable Drugs Action, www.p4adaction.org. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.