Former President Bill Clinton, current Secretary of State John Kerry and other top Democrats pressured a pharmaceutical company to give a major donor an experimental drug, according to emails released by WikiLeaks on Saturday.
WikiLeaks disclosed an email exchange between John Podesta, campaign chairman for Democratic Nominee Hillary Clinton, and Mary Pat Bonner, a donor adviser for Clinton's super PAC.
The emails from October 2008 centered on efforts to get the drug to Dallas Democratic donor Fred Baron, who was suffering from multiple myeloma. In response, Clinton, Kerry and former Democratic senators Tom Harkin and Max Baucus heavily lobbied Biogen, which was the maker of the drug Tysabri.
Tysabri was in clinical trials at the time to treat multiple myeloma, and was previously approved to treat multiple sclerosis.
Bonner said in an email to Podesta that Biogen wouldn't let Baron into the trial because he was too sick, and if the drug failed him then it could skew the outcome of the trials.
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04.29.2024