WASHINGTON – You see them during television news and hear them on other programs multiple times per day: advertisements for prescription drugs for everything from diabetes control and maintenance, to skin treatments and arthritis relief. On Wednesday, Iowa 3rd District Representative Cindy Axne introduced legislation that would end taxpayer subsidies for prescription drug advertisements targeted at American consumers by big pharmaceutical companies. Under current law, drug manufacturers are allowed to deduct the cost of advertising expenses from federal taxes, meaning taxpayer dollars are used to subsidize drug advertisements.

According to Axne, “Iowans are paying more than ever for their prescription drugs while giant pharmaceutical companies clear record profits in part by exploiting loopholes in our tax code to flood our airwaves with T.V. ads subsidized by Iowa tax dollars. This is unacceptable and insulting to the Iowans who tell me at every town hall I hold, the incredible lengths they are going to just to afford their medications.”  Axne says she’s joining with Congresswoman Slotkin, of Michigan, and Congressman Trone, from Maryland, “to introduce legislation that will cut off these tax breaks for drug companies and stop my constituents’ tax dollars from funding the never-ending carousel of prescription ads on their televisions.”

The No Tax Breaks for Drug Ads Act would prohibit any tax deduction for direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising, thereby making sure that taxpayer money isn’t being used to subsidize drug ads. The bill would cover any ad that refers to a prescription drug product and is primarily targeted to the general public, including through journals, magazines, newspapers, broadcast media such as radio and television, and digital platforms such as social media and web applications.

DTC advertising expenses by pharmaceutical companies have more than quadrupled over the past two decades, rising from $1.3 billion in 1997 to $6 billion in 2016. In that same time period, advertising from drug companies has increased from 79,000 ads to 4.6 million ads, including 663,000 TV commercials. Margarida Jorge, Campaign Director for Lower Drug Prices Now, call the tax breaks for drug companies “…corporate welfare of the worst kind.”

The Senate companion of this bill was introduced by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with the Creston Police Department say a woman residing in the 900 block of N. Division Street, in Creston, reported Wednesday morning, an incident of vehicle vandalism. She said that sometime between 10-p.m. Tuesday and 7-a.m., Wednesday, someone broke out the back window of her Dodge 1500 pickup. The damage was estimated at $200.

[Updated 6:18-a.m.] (Honey Creek, Iowa) – Firefighters responded to a structure fire late Wednesday night, in Pottawattamie County. According to KETV in Omaha, crews from at least four area fire departments were called to 27125 Ski Hill Loop at about 11-p.m. They remained at the scene for at least two hours, but weren’t able to put out the flames before the building was destroyed.

Authorities say they believe the property was used to grow mushrooms for area restaurants. No injuries were reported.

(Radio Iowa) – U-S Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer of Cedar Rapids is calling for congressional term limits and pledging to serve just two terms if she’s elected in November. She is one of four candidates running in the Democrat primary in hopes to challenge incumbent Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. Finkenauer is calling for a 12-year term limit for each chamber of Congress.  “You look at somebody like Senator Grassley who has been harping on term limits for almost the entire time he’s been in office but refuses to term limit himself, this is what is wrong with Washington D-C,” Finkenauer says.

Finkenauer served one term as Iowa’s First District U-S House representative after losing a bid for re-election. Finkenauer says she’s in support of two voting rights bills before the U-S Senate this week — and says Grassley should as well.  “If he really cared about bipartisanship he’d be supporting this voting rights act and getting rid of gerrymandering in this country which has created these congressional districts that are so far left or so far right that you’ve got folks who are even afraid to talk to each other because they might get primaried on one side or the other,” Finkenauer says.

Grassley says the voting rights proposals by Democrats are an attempt to federalize elections. Grassley is running for an eighth term to represent Iowa and faces a primary challenge from state senator Jim Carlin from Sioux City.

(By Clay Masters, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – The federal government plans to distribute 400-million free face masks, in addition to millions more COVID-19 test kits, ideas Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says are good but may be too little, too late. The N-95 masks are said to offer better protection than cloth coverings and they’ll be passed out, three per adult, at pharmacies and health centers. Grassley says that will likely take a few weeks. “Presumably, unless there’s a new variant of the virus,” Grassley says, “I would say those masks are going to get out at a point where it’s not going to do much good.”

The government website to order the free COVID test kits crashed on Tuesday after being overloaded by heavy demand. “And then there’s a whole bunch of problems with getting the tests out,” Grassley says, “because people that live in apartments have the same address and things of that nature.” The test kits will be sent out in packages of four tests each, one package per household. Grassley says the logistics of labeling, mailing out and delivering millions of test kits over the next few weeks presents its own set of problems. “So, I hope that they’re able to overcome them so the tests can get out,” Grassley says, “even though we may be beyond this Omicron phase that we’re in now.”

To request a test kit, sign up at the website covidtests.gov. The N-95 masks are coming from the Strategic National Stockpile and the White House says this will be the largest deployment of personal protective equipment in the nation’s history.