Kyrsten Sinema’s political donations from the pharmaceutical industry are under scrutiny in The Daily Beast today, but not to be outdone, Democrat hopeful Mark Kelly has his own personal and campaign ties that cut against his rhetoric on the trail.
Mark Kelly has run TV ads slamming “politicians” that “look the other way” when taking money from drug companies. Yet Kelly accepted a $10,000 donation from Sinema’s political action committee earlier this year, despite her ties to the pharmaceutical industry. He also had no problem taking thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from lobbyists representing the pharmaceutical industry.
But as reported in The Intercept last year, Kelly’s ties to industry money are also personal:
“Kelly gave a raft of paid speeches to pharmaceutical and healthcare industry companies, including Optum, UnitedHealth’s fastest growing subsidiary; AmerisourceBergen, which was under recent federal investigation for its involvement in the opioid crisis; Express Scripts, a company that manages prescriptions online; Innovatix, a group health care purchasing organization, and Paradigm, a hospital and healthcare company focusing on worker’s compensation.”
In addition to the over $70,000 Kelly received for corporate paid speeches to members of the industry, he also holds up to $150,000 in pharmaceutical investments.
“Nearly every poll tested line Mark Kelly utters on the campaign trail is in direct conflict with how he went about making money on the corporate speaking circuit and how he funds his own campaign,” said NRSC spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez. “When it comes to health care and the pharmaceutical industry, Kelly would rather no one actually look at his record thus it expose him as a complete phony.”