AIDS Healthcare Foundation held two demonstrations Tuesday—one outdoors and loud, the other indoors and silent—at the 340B Coalition winter conference in California to protest against the new drug industry/community health center alliance to change the 340B program.
“Let’s be clear. Drug companies already are restricting—unlawfully—the use of contract pharmacies to fill 340B prescriptions and now they’re jockeying for even more restrictions that would kill 340B,” said John Hassell, AHF’s national director of advocacy. “PhRMA is determined to squeeze out nonprofit safety net providers, and NACHC sold its soul for a pittance.”
About 20 AHF mobilizers from Los Angeles marched and chanted outside the San Diego hotel where the conference was held beginning around noon Tuesday, when many of those attending the conference were eating lunch. Around 4:00 p.m. a smaller group silently held protest signs outside a hotel room as conference-goers from health centers were arriving for a closed-door conference session.
AHF posted a short video on Twitter of that demonstration. It shows a person walking into the room telling the protesters, “Not classy, not cool, don’t like it.”
“Wanna know what’s not classy? Advocating for cuts to a lifesaving program that will hurt real people,” AHF responded in the tweet.
