A Single Tear for Billy Tauzin

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Billy Tauzin | Wikimedia Commons.Billy Tauzin | Wikimedia Commons.Poor Billy Tauzin. The Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-head of the pharmaceutical company lobby, PhRMA, is losing his job. The New York Times says it’s because his constituents (pharmaceutical companies) think he “bargained away their profits” and spent too much money supporting a health care reform bill that he thought would inevitably pass. Tauzin and the White House made a secret deal last year that would limit the pharmaceutical industry’s costs over the first ten years of the health bill to some $80 billion. Both sides thought they needed the deal—Tauzin because he was certain the bill would pass, and the White House because they were worried it might not if PhRMA opposed it.

Sure, PhRMA’s support probably helped health care reform get to where it is now—stalled on the five-yard-line. It’s a bummer to lose your job. But Tauzin has been making $2 million a year since 2004, when he got the PhRMA job a few months after negotiating (as a GOP member of Congress) the huge Medicare prescription drug benefit—widely seen as a massive giveaway to drug companies. So pardon me if I don’t feel too bad for not-so-poor Billy.

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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