Congressional Hearing on Court Secrecy

General Discussion Media & Awareness
#1

As you may have seen, a Reuters journalist published an article today Propecia. The article explains how court secrecy prevented information about Propecia’s risks from reaching the public. Some of that information still remains sealed but a lot was made public today.

The journalist also wrote a similar article last month about how court secrecy kept risks about opioids under wraps for decades and contributed to thousands of deaths. Now a subcommittee within the House Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing later this month about court secrecy. I think Propecia may come up because it is one of the two special reports published on court secrecy so far.

Does anybody have any thoughts about what we can do to make a bigger impact for the upcoming hearing? I have included a link to the subcommittee that will be holding the hearing. My initial thought is to check and see if any of the Congresspeople on the committee represent your district that you can write them letters to let them know your story and ask them to pay close attention to the testimony. There are 20 members on the subcommittee so there’s a good chance that at least a few members here will be constituents of these representatives. Any ideas anyone?


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#2

Way to take the lead on making this news loud and clear. It’s important we take this and use it in every way possible.

It’s now undeniable that Merck hid the effects of a drug to make more money. That is quoted in the court proceeding. They admit and know their drug is harmful, so they lied about it’s true nature.

In light of drug companies being punished for their role in the opioid crisis (Johnson and Johnson, for example), we have to make this well known and voiced to the public.

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#3

I’ve had 5 likes on here but only 1 person has clicked the link. I’ll make this easy for you and can even write a letter for you to send. Please let us know, or DM if you prefer, if you are a constituent of or have a link to any of the following reps:

Alabama

  • Martha Roby - R

Arizona

  • Greg Stanton - D
  • Andy Biggs - R

California

  • J. Luis Correa - D
  • Ted Lieu - D
  • Zoe Lofgren - D
  • Karen Bass - D
  • Eric Swalwell - D

Florida

  • Ted Deutsch - D
  • Matt Gaetz - R

Georgia

  • Hank Johnson - D

Louisiana

  • Cedric L. Richmond - D
  • Mike Johnson - R

New York

  • Hakeem S. Jeffries - D

Ohio

  • Steve Chabot - R
  • Jim Jordan - R

Pennsylvania

  • Guy Reschenthaler - R

Tennessee

  • Steve Cohen - D

Texas

  • John Ratcliffe - R

Virginia

  • Ben Cline - R
#4

I did my part and met with Jim Jordan yesterday in D.C and told him how important it is to declassify the documents that were made secret in the Merck Propecia litigation. I intend on also meeting with chairman Nadler in pushing this issue before the 26th.

If you are reading this please email or write a letter at the very least to anyone on this subcommittee how important disclosing these hidden documents to the public is.

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#5

Nice work, @SolutionSeeker.

#6

If you have a letter template, any chance you can post it up here? We have some good writers around this place and maybe we can help work it up.

#7

I don’t have a letter template but I actually think one personally crafted letter that resonates with our audience is far better than bombarding our audience with a message from a lot of PFS patients which is sometimes happens in this community.

Each situation is a little different, but I am more than happy to help people craft a custom message if they have some kind of connection to a representative.

1 Like
#8

i sent an email to my state rep, thanks for sharing this,

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#9

Great, thanks a lot. To anybody else who may write-in to a Congressperson on the subcommittee, I think I would suggest highlighting the following things.

You took Propecia since XYZ and you have been injured and have XYZ symptoms. You have been sick since XYZ and it is a condition with no known cure. Tell them about the article that was recently published and how there is a upcoming Congressional hearing about court secrecy before his/her subcommittee on Sept 26. You can tell them Dan Levine recently wrote a couple articles on court secrecy and how very important public health issues were concealed from the public for decades. If you had been properly informed of the risks, you wouldn’t have taken Propecia and doctors have not even recognized this condition because it has been hidden from the public. You hope they will pay close attention as you are a constituent and justice was not served in the litigation.

1 Like
#10

Here’s what I emailed to several of the subcommittee members :

Good Evening,

My name is ----- and I took Finasteride/Propecia prescribed to me by a Dermatologist to stop hair loss back in 2015 for just a week. I have been injured and have numerous mental and sexual persistent side effects that were supposed to stop after a few weeks according to Doctors but they have not. I am not alone as thousands of men are suffering from these persistent side effects and there are over 60 known suicides from sufferers like me. I have been sick for 4+ years and there is no known cure.

Recently an article was published by Reuters about an upcoming Congressional hearing about court secrecy that specifically involves hidden documents in a class action lawsuit against Merck, the manufacturer of Finasteride/Propecia that could reveal that they knew this drug would cause persistent side effects in some men before marketing it to millions of innocent consumers. If we were all properly informed of the risks, we would have been able to make an informed decision about taking this drug. Please help me and your other constituents in bringing court secrecy under scrutiny because it only hurts the safety and welfare of consumers of this drug and other drugs with potentially serious life changing consequences.

Please read these below articles which can further your knowledge on these issues.

You can also find out more out about Post Finasteride Syndrome at the foundation website: https://www.pfsfoundation.org

Thank you for your time.

Regards,

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#11

Here’s a link to a video of the hearing, text of the hearing, and bios of the witnesses. I think Propecia got a little bit of airtime but it was mostly a discussion about what is the right balance of transparency versus privacy in the court system.

Jim Jordan did attend the hearing but unfortunately didn’t mention Propecia or court secrecy. He used his Q&A to make a scene and grandstand about the current political controversy. But that’s the world we live in.

Jerry Nadler was in attendance and he was very focused as he has introduced Sunshine in Court legislation before.

1 Like
#12

Do you know at what time in the video they talk about propecia?

#13

I don’t think they were able to get through it in the abbreviated testimony but Dan mentioned it in his written testimony which you can find below:

Dan begins his testimony at 1:47:50. Separately if you want to see something kind of weird, Rep. Jordan begins his grandstanding at 2:25:00.

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#14

Thanks for posting this Frustrated!

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#15

I would be happy to help or volunteer my story- I am college student on scholarship who scored a 1600 on the SAT’s who took finasteride for a week almost a year ago, as a junior, and now as a senior I can no longer remember or process information like I used to. I also lost all sexual attraction, and sexual pleasure. I’m still young, still recent, and still alive, so I would like to make my story valuable while I can.

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#16

@cman, have you considered our YouTube project? If you’re willing to speak out, we are aiming and hoping to publish a series of 6 patient videos telling their stories. It’s one of the bravest and most valuable things someone can currently do. You can read more here if you are interested:

Best

axo

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#17

Can you message me so we can talk in more detail, or possible schedule a phone call?