Despite tremendous Congressional action in the past three weeks, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a huge toll on our families, our front-line workers and on the economy.

It’s clear Congress must take more action to ensure we can contain the disease, protect the workers we depend on for so many basic necessities, and put in place health care resources we need to help millions of people get or stay healthy.

Congress has already invested more than $3.7 billion in research to develop COVID drugs and vaccines. But so far, the Trump Administration has refused to guarantee that prescription drug corporations will make those medicines affordable. In fact, Big Pharma companies are already trying to profiteer off monopoly prices just as we’ve seen them do with insulin, Epi-Pens and many other prescription drugs.

It’s up to Congress to make sure our taxpayer dollars get us vaccines and treatments that we can all afford by stopping the drug corporations from profiteering off of today’s pandemic.

That means Congress must include safeguards in the next relief package that:

1. Require fair and reasonable prices for all COVID drugs or vaccines developed with taxpayer funds so we can all afford them.

2. Block drug corporation monopolies that enable Big Pharma profiteering off COVID treatments and vaccines.

3. Mandate that the Trump Administration--including Secretary Azar, a former Pharma executive--disclose to the public how much taxpayer money is going to drug corporations to create treatments and vaccines.

No matter where you come from, what you look like or what’s in your wallet, we could all get sick from the current pandemic. We all need affordable medicine to get healthy and to take care of our families.

The United States has a long legacy of effectively battling epidemics like measles, polio and rubella to save millions of lives. But vaccines and medicines can’t work if we can’t afford them because drug monopolies demand sky-high prices.

It’s time to get ahead of the curve. A long term plan to stop COVID-19 in its tracks requires that taxpayer funded treatments and vaccines we need to eradicate the disease will be available and affordable to all. Congress must take action now to stop pandemic profiteering, to ensure affordable and widespread access to vaccines and treatments as soon as they are available.