The drug industry, patient advocates and congressional Republicans have all attacked federal officials’ decision to decline routine Medicare coverage for a controversial Alzheimer’s drug. They’ve gone as far as to accuse them of tacit racism, ageism and discrimination against the disabled—and hinted at a lawsuit—over the decision to pay only for patients taking the drug in a clinical trial.
The drug, Aduhelm, with a listed price tag of $28,200 a year, has had few takers in the medical world. Brain doctors are leery of administering the intravenous drug because it appears dangerous and largely ineffective. Many of the nation’s…
