At a rally outside PhRMA’s headquarters, activists accuse drug makers of blocking ‘Medicare for All’

A crowd of roughly 200 progressive protestors planted themselves on the ground in the middle of a normally bumper-to-bumper four-lane corridor here Monday with a firm message for the drug industry: get out of our way.

The crowd wasn’t there — in front of the trade association PhRMA’s headquarters — to protest a specific drug’s price spike or an unsafe drug. Instead, they were seated in solidarity with the speaker at the front of the crowd: Ady Barkan, a 34-year old activist with ALS confined to a wheelchair.