The political arm of a drug-pricing advocacy group is targeting Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., for her donations from pharmaceutical companies.
The $500,000 buy of direct mailers from Patients for Affordable Drugs Action is the first targeting a Democrat during this election cycle, although the group has helped Republicans up for re-election.
“Anna Eshoo’s record on drug prices is terrible, and the reason why is obvious,” said David Mitchell, founder of the group, in a statement. “She’s taken enormous sums of money from drug corporations and she does their bidding in Washington.”
The group charges that Eshoo’s name has been “conspicuously absent” from important pieces of legislation tackling prices.
“Instead, Eshoo lent vigorous support to policies that would extend drug companies’ monopolies and keep prices high,” the group said in a release.
It charges Eshoo took more than $1.58 million in contributions from drug companies.
The direct mailer represents the first attack from the group on a Democrat. It has previously attacked the record of Bob Hugin, a former pharma CEO running against Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. It also donated to the re-election campaign of Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., who has introduced a bill in the House to end a scheme that drug companies use to thwart generic competition.
Eshoo’s campaign office did not immediately return a request for comment.
[Also read: Trump teases announcement that will lower prescription drug prices]
