Robert McDonald The United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) suggested that the Secretary "utilize federal law, specifically 28 USC § 1498, to break the patents on these drugs to authorize third parties to manufacture or import them for government use" through section 1498". to "address the funding shortfall that has resulted from the high demand for, and high cost of, direct-acting antivirals." Amy Kapczynski, a Yale University law professor, and Aaron S. Kesselheim, Harvard Medical School associate professor of medicine, proposed that the federal government "invoke section 1498 to make important new high-cost therapies widely available to patients who need them." By July 2017, Louisiana's health secretary—Rebekah Gee—who described Louisiana as Americas's "public-health-crisis cradle", was investigating the use of the "government patent use" as a strategy, to make Sofosbuvir, manufactured by Gilead Sciences, a highly effective treatment for Hepatitis C which cost $84,000 for a treatment in 2016. Gilead's CEO John Martin has been questioned by the US Congress on the prohibitive pricing. Louisiana and other states were forced to ration Sofosbuvir by delaying treatment of Medicaid hepatitis patients until the liver presented more severe damage. References External links U.S. Code Title 28, via United States Government Printing Office Text of Title 28 of the U.S. Code at Cornell's Legal Information Institute 28 Title 28 Government patent use Federal sovereign immunity in the United States Government procurement in the United States