Patrick Kennedy, former Democratic representative and scion of the political dynasty, is the go-to player for companies seeking to benefit from the Trump administration’s multibillion-dollar response to the opioid crisis. He is taking in well over $1 million in salaries and equity stakes in the firms, Politico reports. The 50-year-old son of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who stepped down from Congress in 2011 amid his own battles with addiction and mental illness, is a high-profile mental health advocate who sat on President Trump’s opioid commission.
Kennedy heads the behavioral health nonprofit Kennedy Forum, which is funded partly by major drug makers and addiction-treatment companies. He received more than $1.1 million in compensation from the organization between 2014 and 2016. He sits on the boards of eight corporations deeply invested in Washington’s response to the opioid crisis, from which he collects director fees and holds an equity stake. Many of those firms stand to benefit from efforts in Congress and the Trump administration to combat the opioid crisis by expanding treatment and speeding anti-opioid drugs to market. Kennedy has met regularly with his former congressional colleagues to advocate for more spending. The many jobs make Kennedy a one-man nexus of government, private-sector and patient-advocacy work, which he calls an expression of his lifelong goal to erase the stigma surrounding mental health and addiction. He acknowledged that his battles for more government funding and broader use of medication dovetail with the financial interests of the firms he advises and the Kennedy Forum’s corporate backers, but said the treatments are also medically sound.