This is What’s Trending Today.
Martin Shkreli has been called the “most hated man in America.”
The businessman was criticized last year after his company sharply raised the price of a life-saving drug. Studies have shown that the drug, Daraprim, can help patients with AIDS and some kinds of cancer. Daraprim is used all over the world.
Last year, Shkreli’s company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the cost of the drug from $13.50 a pill to $700 a pill. Daraprim once sold for $1 a pill. Shkreli defended the price increase as legal. He has said the move was designed to increase profits for investors.
On Thursday, Shkreli appeared at a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. House members wanted to ask him why the company raised the price of the medicine.
Shkreli chose to use his Fifth Amendment rights and did not answer the lawmakers’ questions. The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says a person does not have to be a “witness against himself” in a criminal court case.
But, Shkreli was not totally silent on Thursday. He tweeted about the hearing right after it ended. He criticized the lawmakers who were questioning him.
In one tweet, he wrote, “Hard to accept that these imbeciles represent the people in our government.”
By Thursday morning, “Martin Shkreli” was the number-one search on Google. “Shkreli” trended on Twitter in the United States.
On social media, many people criticized Shkreli for smiling during the questioning.
One of the lawmakers even said, “It's not funny, Mr. Shkreli. People are dying and they're getting sicker and sicker.”
But others on social media criticized members of Congress, saying they did not respect Shkreli’s Fifth Amendment Rights.
Very disappointing to watch @TGowdySC try to talk @MartinShkreli into waiving his 5th Amendment rights during his congressional testimony.
— ValerieSargentMartin (@ValerieSMartin) February 4, 2016
And that’s What’s Trending Today.
I’m Ashley Thompson.
Words in This Story
imbecile - n. a very stupid person
