In the wake of the “60 Minutes“/Washington Post story on the drug industry using its political influence to pass a law to undercut Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to police pill-mill suppliers, the sponsors of the bill have lashed back, claiming they were simply acting in the interest of patients.

“Leave the conspiracy theories to Netflix,” wrote Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. In a column responding to the story, Hatch said the piece falsely depicted lawmakers as “in the pocket of the drug industry.”

Hatch wrote that he was concerned about reasonable access to drugs, and “with the support of patient advocates and others,” negotiated a version of the bill to introduce in the Senate.

Not only does the story provide robust evidence that pharmaceutical supply companies were involved in every step of the legislative process — with a drug lobbyist even ghostwriting the original bill — the patients rights’ organizations supporting the effort have extensive ties to the drug industry.

One of the primary letters to lawmakers in support of the legislation was signed by several self-described “patient advocacy and health professional” organizations, including the Alliance for Patient Access, a group that receives support from drug companies involved in the opioid industry.

The metadata of the letter, dated three days after the bill was introduced, shows a name unrelated to the patient groups that signed it. The document properties show that the letter was created by Kristen L. Freitas, the vice president for federal government affairs of the Healthcare Distributors Alliance. HDA is the trade group that represents McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen, the principal suppliers of pharmaceutical opioids in the country. Freitas, filings show, was one of the drug industry lobbyists working to influence lawmakers in support of the bill.

Freitas did not respond to a request for comment; neither did the patient organization that sponsored the letter.

An investigation last year by the Charleston Gazette-Mail revealed that major distributors had disregarded rules to report suspicious orders to the DEA while flooding West Virginia with over 480 million pain pills over a five year period. The unusually large shipments, from firms such as McKesson and Cardinal, have been directly linked to the skyrocketing opioid addiction problem in the region.