The claim: Nancy Pelosi bought 10,000 shares of company behind Nplate radiation drug
In October, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it had spent $290 million on a supply of a drug used to treat radiation sickness. Some social media users claimed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to profit off the purchase.
“BREAKING Nancy Pelosi purchases 10,000 shares of Amgen, manufacturer of NPlate, a drug used to treat radiation sickness,” reads a screenshot of a tweet in an Oct. 10 Facebook post.
The post and several others like it were shared dozens of times, while the original tweet accumulated nearly 3,000 retweets and more than 9,000 likes.
But the claim is wrong.
There is no record of such a transaction in Pelosi’s required financial disclosures, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, said the claim is false.
USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the post for comment.
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Pelosi’s spokesperson says she doesn’t own any stocks
Pelosi doesn’t own any stocks, and her husband, Paul, has never invested in the company in the claim, Hammill said.
All stock purchases by lawmakers must be recorded in regular financial disclosure reports. There is no indication Pelosi bought stock in Amgen, which manufactures Nplate, in any of the financial disclosure reports she has filed so far this year.
While it’s legal for members of Congress to own and trade stocks, some lawmakers have proposed a ban out of concern that non-public information could be used for their own benefit.
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The government’s purchase of the drug was announced around the same time President Joe Biden warned the world is now at the highest risk of nuclear “Armageddon” of any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The department, though, said it bought the drug as part of “long-standing, ongoing efforts to be better prepared to save lives following radiological and nuclear emergencies.”
USA TODAY has debunked several false claims about Pelosi, including that she bought stock in a cannabis company days before Biden announced federal marijuana pardons, that she removed Biden from office and that Democrats kicked her out of office.
Our rating: False
Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that Pelosi bought 10,000 shares of the company behind the Nplate radiation drug. Her spokesperson said she doesn’t own any stocks and that her husband has not invested in the company. There are no financial disclosure reports that say she bought these stocks.
Our fact-check sources:
- Drew Hammill, Oct. 27, Email exchange with USA TODAY
- House of Representatives, accessed Oct. 27, Financial Disclosure Reports
- Department of Health and Human Services, Oct. 4, HHS purchases drug for use in radiological and nuclear emergencies
- NBC News, Oct. 7, Why U.S. purchase of radiation sickness drug Nplate is no cause for alarm
- The New York Times, Sept. 30, Democrats in Congress Point Fingers at Their Leaders Over Stock Trading Ban
- USA TODAY, Oct. 12, Biden’s ‘Armageddon’ nuclear warning builds on increasing worries about a desperate Putin
- USA TODAY, Oct. 14, Fact check: False claim that Pelosi bought cannabis stocks days before Biden marijuana announcement
- USA TODAY, Oct. 21, Fact check: House Speaker Pelosi doesn’t have authority on her own to remove president from office
- USA TODAY, Sept. 29, Fact check: Nancy Pelosi is still in office, not ‘kicked out’ by Democrats
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