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ICYMI: Central PA Mother Talks with Bob Casey About Losing Her Daughter to Fentanyl Overdose [Keystone Newsroom]

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Keystone Newsroom: Dave McCormick Invested in Chinese Fentanyl Before Wanting to Ban it During Campaign

PENNSYLVANIA — Earlier this week, Senator Bob Casey sat down with Lori Mishler, co-founder of family recovery center Sara’s House of Hope, to discuss the loss of her daughter to fentanyl overdose, the impact of the fentanyl crisis across Pennsylvania, and action Senator Casey is taking to stop illegal fentanyl trafficking. 

ICYMI: Keystone Newsroom: Central PA mother talks with Bob Casey about losing her daughter to fentanyl overdose

  • “She was my best friend. There isn’t anything we didn’t do together.” That’s how Lori Mishler remembers her daughter, Sara Mishler, who passed away from a fentanyl overdose in 2015 at the age of 25. 
  • Casey advocated for the passage of the bipartisan Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence (FEND) Off Fentanyl Act, which was signed into law this past April. The law declares fentanyl trafficking a national emergency and places financial sanctions on international drug cartels and other key members distributing fentanyl internationally.  
  • Casey: “As we know that these precursor chemicals start in China, find their way through drug trafficking internationally to Mexico. That’s where the problem really explodes when you have the precursor chemicals from China that find their way into the Mexican drug cartels, and then they come across our border through ports of entry.”
  • Casey: “One of the things we’ve tried to focus on as well is the, not just the treatment end of it, but also kind of the origin of it.”
  • Casey, who is running for reelection this November, has been vocal about criticizing his Republican challenger, Dave McCormick, for investing in Humanwell, China’s largest fentanyl producer, when he was the CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. 
  • The Keystone reported earlier this month that McCormick’s hedge fund invested $1.7 million in Humanwell, which produces 90% of China’s fentanyl. 
  • In a recent NPR interview, Casey said of McCormick, “I’ve got an opponent, who, when he was a hedge fund manager, actually invested millions in China’s largest producer of fentanyl, so that’s going to be a big issue in this race because we’ve lost too many Pennsylvanians to the poison of fentanyl.”

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