{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/latest-headlines/the-senate-just-got-closer-to-figuring-out-how-to-stop-people-like-martin-shkreli-aka-mr-wu-tang-from-hiking-drug-prices", "The Senate just got closer to figuring out how to stop people like Martin Shkreli, aka 'Mr. Wu-Tang,' from hiking drug prices", "2015-12-10", "2015", "2015-12", "Democrat", "House", "MO", "Claire McCaskill", "M001170", "www.mccaskill.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "The Senate just got closer to figuring out how to stop people like Martin Shkreli, aka 'Mr. Wu-Tang,' from hiking drug prices \r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                Thursday, December 10, 2015\r\n            \r\n            \n\t\n\r\n            \r\n            \r\n                  \r\n                    By:\r\n                    Lydia Ramsey\r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                \r\n                \r\n                \r\n            The drug-pricing debate has officially kicked off in the Senate's hearing rooms.\r\nOn Wednesday, members of the Special Committee on Aging heard health experts speak out sharply against price gouging in which companies acquire older drugs with no generic competition and suddenly raise their price.\r\nNotably missing from the panel of witnesses  which focused mainly on actions by Valeant and Turing Pharmaceuticals  were the companies that have done so. Martin Shkreli, the CEO of Turing, said in atweet Wednesdaythat while he had not been called on, he \"would have loved to insult Congress.\"\r\nEven without his presence, inside jokes weren't hard to come by. For her part, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) referred to Shkreli as \"Mr. Wu-Tang\"; other senators referred to CEOs who've price gouged as \"hedge fund folks.\"\r\n Hearing from those affected by Shkreli's price hikes \r\nAt the hearing, Dr. David Kimberlin, who specializes in pediatric infectious disease at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, spoke of a situation in September, around the time Daraprim's price went up after Turing bought the rights to the drug, in which he found barriers to getting the drug because the monthly cost for four tablets suddenly spiked to $3,000 from $54.\r\nBecause babies infected with toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that can be deadly in infants and in adults with weakened immune systems, have to take Daraprim for a full year, increasing dosage along the way, that cost was suddenly prohibitive for some of his patients.\r\nKimberlin also told the committee that he had heard of at least 30 cases in 21 states in which doctors and patients had trouble accessing Daraprim, though he didn't specify whether these cases had occurred after Turingslightly revised its pricing strategy.\r\nThe hearing boiled down to two solutions to the market failure that happens when there's no generic competition for off-patent drugs that are used by relatively few patients.\r\n  \r\n            \r\n             \r\n            \r\n            \n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\tPrint\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tEmail\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t  \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tTweet", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/latest-headlines/the-senate-just-got-closer-to-figuring-out-how-to-stop-people-like-martin-shkreli-aka-mr-wu-tang-from-hiking-drug-prices"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 4.093123134225607, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}