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Borglum Made Money as Pharmaceutical Dealer in Texas

Frank Carroll’s hilarious paean to Scyller Borglum as a “prairie Churchill” (“compared to AOC,” writes Carroll, showing both his own whiff of Trumpism and his failure to critically compare the oratory of the Congresswoman from the Bronx offers and Borglum’s conservative campaign trail platitudes) offers one bit of potentially useful biography on Senator Mike Rounds’s primary challenger: she apparently made big money selling drugs in Texas:

Borglum moved alone into virgin territory in pharmaceutical sales in Texas and emerged with a multi-million-dollar operation. She was on top, not because she is pretty and positive — everybody in pharma sales is pretty and positive — but because she took her program to the doctors and patients who needed what she offered and sold it: Direct sales to the people who mattered. It’s a model she is using to win the Senate [Frank Carroll, “Borglum a Credible Candidate for Senate,” Rapid City Journal, 2019.07.16].

I already don’t trust salespeople. Knowing she was a pharma-peddler in Texas does not raise her to Churchillian status. It just means Republicans are offering me a choice between a drug seller and an insurance salesman for Senate.

26 Comments

  1. jerry

    Between 2006-2012, South Dakota was prescribed 115,426,857 pain pills. Walgreen’s in Rapid City sold 2,826,230 pain pills. You can make a whole lot of money pushing drugs to people…legally. No wonder CBD and medical cannabis are disliked by GNoem and Rounds and Blondie, they would cut into their cartel big time. Imagine treating your pain by yourself with what you can grow yourself…imagine that.

    Neither one of these should qualify for representation of this state, but, alas, Rounds was anointed with his Yarmulke to kiss the ring of Netanyahooo, So, he will be difficult to beat. While Borglum really doesn’t even have that going for her, or really anything. An empty suit with a yarmulke and the empty high heels for a drug pusher. Wow, some Democrat should run against the winner of that freak show. http://theconstantcommoner.blogspot.com/2014/12/mike-rounds-hires-pr-maven-from-pro.html

  2. Nick Nemec

    Any word on which drugs she was hawking? There are a lot of abuses in that sector of the drug industry. Over selling opioid painkillers is just the tip of the iceberg.

  3. John

    Mr. Carroll’s folksy columns frequently lack critical thought and reasoning. Another example of his trumpism was his cheer leading over the administration’s thoughtless, stillborn attempt to strip the student training job corps centers from the US Department of Agriculture to move them to the labor department, and close many.

  4. chris

    company she repped for did adderall. That’ll impress trump. (Sniff).

  5. jerry

    Adderall, hmmm.
    “This is a song with a message
    I want you to heed my warning
    I wanna tell you all a story
    About this chick I know
    They call her “Amphetamine Annie”
    She’s always shoveling snow” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMzoqpyUbhg

    Sing along, it’s perfect for the way we all live now.

  6. Debbo

    Jerry, I was thinking “Poke Salad Annie.” Not quite the same. 😊

    It would be interesting to know a little more about Borglum’s pharma days. It’s probably good to keep in mind that not everyone connected to pharma is a crook. Most, yes, but not all. 😉

  7. Nick, my casual searching doesn’t find a name for Borglum’s supposedly successful Texas company. I’ll keep looking. Chris, Adderall? Do you have a source for that statement?

  8. Porter Lansing

    Dr. Borglum sold executive specialty pharmaceuticals from three platforms: psychiatry, nephrology and gastroenterology for Shire Pharmaceuticals for four years and eleven months (2005-2010).
    Because it begins with A, adderall is listed first in their product list.
    https://www.shire.com/products/product-list

  9. grudznick

    Dr. Borg does that ketones diet thing like Dr. Boz does, too.

  10. chris

    @Cory

    I don’t think she ought to give up on running vs. Rounds, with a resume like that:

    https://votesmart.org/candidate/biography/180882/scyller-borglum

    Professional Experience

    Staff Engineer, RESPEC, 2015-2016, 2018-present
    Graduate Research Assistant, Energy Resources Initiative, South Dakota Mines, 2017-2018
    Post-Graduate Researcher, National Energy Technology Labratory, 2016-2017
    Graduate Teaching Assistant, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, 2015-2016
    Production Engineer and Intern, Marathon Oil Corporation, 2012-2015
    Teaching Assistant, Montana Tech, 2011-2014
    Intern, Anadarko Petroleum, 2011
    Intern, Packers Plus, 2010
    Executive Specialty Pharmaceutical Sales Representative, Shire Pharmaceuticals, 2005-2010

  11. chris

    @Cory

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire_(pharmaceutical_company)

    […Shire Plc was a Jersey-registered, Irish-headquartered global specialty biopharmaceutical company. Originating in the United Kingdom with an operational base in the United States, its brands and products included Vyvanse, Lialda, and Adderall XR. …]

  12. Porter Lansing

    Doper Don does speed (Adderall)? No kidding. We all saw how he stalked and paced around behind Hillary at the debate; acting like a half crazed monkey/Tarzan morph.
    The United States President, on the most important day of his political career, resorted to unprescribed and unadmitted, mind altering, hard drug, use. That should be enough, but it isn’t. He’s still leading in his campaign for reelection. Pitiful.
    Doper Don Must GO!

  13. jerry

    Doper Don, wears bell bottoms and large collared flowered shirts. trump, this is your brain and this is your brain on speed. That’s why when he speaks, he purses up his lips like his gonna whistle and then bullpukey comes out.

  14. Debbo

    One thing I need to say, Borglum’s success at being a self-made woman puts her far ahead of Roundy, Thinly and Dustmop. Of course Rancid Racist isn’t even in the contest.

  15. Debbo

    Of course, she may have made her $ at the expense of the physical and mental wellbeing of others, but we don’t know that, yet. If so, then, like the rest of SD’s and national GOP leadership, Borglum fits right in.

  16. Baby Moon

    She is an interesting person, come out of nowhere to tell our suckass Senator that he isn’t sucking enough Trump ass. I don’t think that’s even a viable argument bc he voted w Trump something like 90% of the time. She is not from here but plays on the Borglum name (and Mt. Mushmore – look at her campaign materials), implying that she’s from THAT Borglum, but she’s not. She’s in her early 40s, been a student most of her life, swung wildly from theology (what is THAT about) to geology to engineering, with a short successful career midway as a plucky drug salesperson. She is not working in her area of expertise and now wants to govern us, focusing on a yet-to-be-disclosed health care plan (yeah, right) and a couple of other things. I think that she (just like most of the the Dem presidential candidates this go-round) is in it to quick raise some funds that she really doesn’t have to work for that she can keep for her personal benefit if she doesn’t win (which she won’t bc she’s a nobody with no real plan, campaign website or campaign infrastructure). She’s over here planting flowers and laughing her way to the bank (she lives across the street from me so I observe her daily – she and her husband just bought a 350,000 house). One thing she did do right is she has a devoted husband who adores and supports her with depth and commitment…you can see it in his eyes. That’s nice.

  17. So, Baby Moon, Borglum is basically Annette Bosworth without the fraudster husband?

    Not to defend Borglum—her Trumpism disqualifies her from rational consideration—but theology isn’t a disqualifying field of study. Theology studied properly trains one to pay close attention to language, texts, meaning, and philosophy.

    Nor does changing careers disqualify one from running for office: a diverse educational background—especially one involving both philosophical and scientific inquiry—might make one a better legislator than Mike Rounds’s pure profiteering background.

  18. Debbo

    First, to be clear, this is not about Borglum. It’s about Big Pharma and opiods from the Sunday Strib:

    “Victor Borelli, a national account manager for Mallinckrodt, told Steve Cochrane, vice president of sales for KeySource Medical, to check his inventories and ‘if you are low, order more. If you are okay, order a little more, capesce?”

    “At Mallinckrodt, Borelli used the phrase ‘ship, ship, ship’ to describe his job and then joked, ‘destroy this e-mail … Is that really possible? Oh Well …’ ”

    “In January 2009, Borelli told Cochrane in another e-mail that 1,200 bottles of oxycodone 30 mg tablets had been shipped. ‘Keep ’em comin’!’ Cochrane responded.’ Flyin’ out of there. It’s like people are addicted to these things or something. Oh, wait, people are …’ Borelli responded:’ Just like Doritos, keep eating. We’ll make more.'”

    “The Controlled Substances Act requires drug companies to control against diversion, and to design and operate systems to identify ‘suspicious orders,’ defined as ‘orders of unusual size, orders deviating substantially from a normal pattern, and orders of unusual frequency.’ The companies are supposed to report such orders to the DEA and refrain from shipping them unless they can determine the drugs are unlikely to be diverted to the black market.”

    http://m.startribune.com/e-mails-reveal-drug-companies-indifference-to-opioid-epidemic/512993862/
    (Sorry. My link shortener died.)

    Nice people, eh?

  19. Donald Pay

    Anyone else have concerns about Borglum’s jobs and job hopping?

    We’ve had discussions on Dakota Free Press about millennial job hopping. Our right-leaning posters have pointed out millennials change jobs a lot, and point to that as an indication that they aren’t good employees. Well, in chris’ post above is a millennial’s resume, and you can see she spends about as much time as she can learn a job, and she’s out the door. Any problem with that?

    I’m more concerned about who she’s been working for. RESPEC does a lot of things, but one of the main things they have done over 40 years is taxpayer -funded research for the federal government’s effort to site a high-level radioactive waste site. I notice that Heather Wilson also threw some money at RESPEC regarding remediation at Air Force bases.

    Most of her work involves fossil fuel extraction, a 20th century energy source. I don’t think her education shows much effort in areas that deal with 21st century problems. I’m willing to be convinced otherwise.

  20. Debbo

    I don’t have a problem with her varied work or education. If she paid attention, both were opportunities to learn about subjects and people.

    I don’t think it’s known yet if she did pay attention. I think the odds are not good, since shes a trumpelstilskin.

  21. Donald, is we can tie Borglum to the Deep Borehole proposal that RESPEC pushed, will that help or hurt her vote in the Republican primary?

  22. Robert McTaggart

    Yeah, that is just terrible. Trying to do research to solve a radioactive waste issue. Imagine, using public funding to do something for the public good. Jerry won’t stand for it.

    Come on Cory, it is much better these days in politics to not to solve problems so we have something to complain about….

    What is worse is if we could use the same technology for clean geothermal energy or to isolate toxic materials from renewables away from the biosphere.

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