A hearty group of protesters waved their banners amid frigid winds on the steps of City Hall to protest skyrocketing prescription drug costs and call for reforms. The rally was held prior to a public hearing on Feb. 5 at the nearby New York State Senate Majority hearing room, where testimony on prescription-drug issues was heard.

The protesters included Local 237’s Doris Welch, a retired activist who is on the board of the New York City Alliance for Retired Americans. Welch joined several consumer advocacy groups supporting Lani Sanjek, associate director of the New York Statewide Senior Action Council, who testified at the hearing.

The issue of access to affordable prescription drugs “affects everyone not just seniors,” said Katherine Roberts of the Joint Public Affairs Committee for Older Adults (JPAC), who spoke at the rally, emphasizing that some seniors “have to decide between medicines and food.”

In her testimony at the hearing, Sanjek urged New York State to “confront the enormous crisis created by the predatory pricing practices” of big pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, which are “waging a war to ensure and protect their outrageous profiteering.” Pfizer, for example, has threatened to cut off supplies to Canadian companies that are selling prescription drugs cheaper to a rising number of Americans, who buy them illegally, according to a recent report in the AARP Bulletin. Sanjek called for the state to take “bold actions to attain price parity with Canada and Mexico” and to “support the importation of medications with appropriate safety standards.”

Another obstacle to parity is that under the new Medicare drug benefit law, the U.S. government is banned from negotiating prescription-drug prices directly with manufacturers. “We need to consider using our enormous stock holdings in the state pension fund to pressure these companies, not just to lower prices, but also to stop their harassment of Canada,” said Sanjek, who cited Illinois and Minnesota among states that have taken the lead to find ways to lower prices for people without coverage, and to lower costs for state governments.

“New York State must learn from other states to put together a purchasing plan and challenge the drug industry,” said Sanjek.