Big Pharma douchebag Martin Shkreli widely condemned as the worst person of 2015

Saturday, February 13, 2016 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: Martin Shkreli, indictment, Big Pharma

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(NaturalNews) There were are a lot of "villains" in the public's eye in 2015, and who the biggest ones were is, of course, a subjective manner. Some saw the rise of billionaire Donald Trump to become the top Republican presidential contender as villainous. Sticking with a political theme, others thought that top Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email account to conduct classified communications was one of the worst things a person could do.

But nearly everyone who heard the story of Martin Shkreli thought that he was the biggest villain of them all.

Who is he, you ask? In the words of the U.K.'s GQ Magazine, Shkreli is the "fratboy CEO who gained overnight notoriety after his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the price of HIV drug Daraprim from $13.50 a dose to $750: an increase of 5,500 per cent."

As you might have guessed, the insane hike didn't sit well with most people, and for others it was the worst of the worst kind of behavior for Big Pharma. Shkreli was described as "the most hated man in America" by the BBC, and Twitter went wild with all kinds of viciousness (because it's a sewer there, but you get the drift). Interestingly enough, however, he united Democratic contenders Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, as well as Trump, in condemnation (though Clinton's outrage seems a bit staged, given that she is the biggest recipient of Big Pharma donations).

The indicted one

Well, karma is a you-know-what, they say. Or maybe it's just that the temperament of someone who would so coldly raise prices to the level he did for a vitally important (and formerly affordable) medication is such that he was destined to step in it, so to speak, to overreach.

In recent days, Shkreli was arrested by the FBI for alleged investment fraud, summarily losing his role as chief executive of Turing and his newly acquired company KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, where he owned a majority of shares in November, only to be sacked in December.

He is blaming his arrest on the fallout over the Daraprim price hike, which he often tried to justify. And though the price hike was legal (if not improper), it probably did bring him outsized attention from the Feds, GQ Magazine UK observed.

"The universe may be vast, empty and indifferent but it does have a sense of dramatic irony," the magazine noted.

Big companies drastically raising drug prices isn't a rarity. However, Shkreli attracted opprobrium for two reasons:

For one thing, the drug he so dramatically raised the price on – Daraprim – has been around since 1953, so it's not revolutionary, rare or even expensive to manufacture. So what he did was essentially motivated by rabid greed.

Secondly, he's just not a nice person, noted GQ Magazine UK [which labeled him a rather explicit name that need not be repeated in this space].

"He appeared to relish his newfound notoriety. Any criticism of his actions was met with indifference or outright contempt. Everybody from outraged healthcare professionals to presidential candidates received the metaphorical finger," the magazine said.

What a charmer

One of his tweets from Dec. 14 summed up the kind of person he really is: "50-100 date solicitations a day for me, the world's most eligible bachelor. Sorry, but you have to be a shareholder to meet me."

What lucky lady (or man) would pass up on this charmer?

Even some members of Congress were treated to his brand of arrogance. On Feb. 4, he appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at a hearing focused on – what else? – rising drug prices. But to each question fired at him, Shkreli merely smirked, and answered the same: "On the advice of counsel, I invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and respectfully decline to answer your question."

After his appearance, he tweeted: "Hard to accept that these imbeciles represent the people in our government."

Yes, well, no one on the House panel is under indictment, Mr. Shkreli.

Enjoy your jail cell.

Sources:

GQ-Magazine.co.uk

TheHill.com

NPR.org