Foulkes Talks Education, Mandating Vaccination for Children, and Her Role at CVS in Opioid Crisis

Friday, January 21, 2022

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Foulkes appeared on GoLocal LIVE

Helena Foulkes is arguably one of the most successful Rhode Islanders in business in the past 25 years. She helped build CVS into one of the largest corporations in America.

Now, she is running for the Democratic nomination for governor and faces a crowded field of experienced politicians.

Foulkes made news on a number of fronts in Thursday's interview on GoLocal LIVE when she challenged Governor Dan McKee's handling of the Providence schools takeover, called for mandating the COVID vaccine for students in schools, and defended her and CVS's role in the opioid crisis.

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CVS was recently found guilty in federal court in Ohio.

 

Why I am Running, CVS, and Fighting Cancer

"I'm running because it really feels like given my experience, I know how to make big things happen for Rhode Islanders and as you said, I spent 25 years at CVS," said Foulkes on LIVE> 

“I worked my way up -- I started there right after school. I had almost every job. I started at a pretty mid-level job...I was busy during all that having kids pretty quickly and when my youngest child was just a one-year-old, I got cancer and one of the things I realized was that I was very lucky. I was lucky because I worked for a great company that gave me health insurance and paid time off,” said Foulkes.

“And, I want to bring that same set of comfort and experience to Rhode Islanders so they can achieve great things too whatever they want to in their lives,” she said.

 

Providence Schools Takeover and Charter Schools

On education, Foulkes criticized Governor Dan McKee’s handling of the state’s takeover of the Providence school system and discussed the expansion of charter schools.

“Well, I certainly don't think that the takeover has accomplished the goals and let's all face that the timing was really rough -- this happened just before COVID, but if you look at the scores in Providence, in particular, we have 14% of our kids passing their reading scores and only 7% in math, so I think this was a golden opportunity to do something different,” said Foulkes.

“I don't think Governor McKee has been successful in that, but I don't think we should give up on the fact that we owe the state of Providence more results,” said Foulkes.

Foulkes said the poor education structure was a problem in hiring when she was at CVS.  

"I'm very concerned about the state of education. I saw it as a big employer. It really holds us back from attracting more families and for allowing businesses to hire the people they want," added Foulkes.

Regarding the expansion of charter schools, Foulkes said, "I think ultimately I go back to where I started -- education is about serving our parents and our children and giving them the best possible options so I think that most importantly the state will always rely on great public schools. We've got to have a great public school system because that's just where the numbers are. We can't let it be mediocre -- we have to keep investing in our public school kids."

"But, I'm also very open to the idea that there are other options and other ways of serving kids. And, some [charter schools] are great and some are not great. We need to really dig into them," she added.

 

Foulkes Calls for RI School Children to be Vaccinated

Regarding her position of requiring all schoolchildren to be vaccinated, Foulkes said that if it was approved by the CDC, she would push for COVID mandating vaccinations just as the state does for other diseases.

"Look, I want to make sure that the CDC has fully approved all of this for [school] aged kids -- age is five and up -- but you know, this is a really sad example of how COVID has become politicized and I think I'm the kind of leader, if you look at my history, that I know how to bring people together and sort of keep the temperature down," said Foulkes.

"Kids today in kindergarten across all of Rhode island have requirements on vaccinations whether it's for measles or bumps or chickenpox and, you know, we did as kids and we all knew that this was in the spirit of keeping us safe and so assuming the CDC approves this for children ages five and up, I think that should just be part of the regular mix of how we keep everyone safe and so I would be supportive of that because I think it's consistent with our history of keeping our children safe with the vaccinations," said Foulkes

Foulkes chided McKee's management of the virus in Rhode Island. For two straight weeks, the state has been the most infected state in the county and in December suffered 150 deaths. Rhode Island will surpass that number in January.

"If I'm critical of anything at this moment is that we all know now that in November, [McKee] could see the data, that despite the fact that we all wanted to get out of it and we were getting more comfortable and loose in November the numbers were spiking and I think he didn't use that opportunity to say what are the right steps that I take at this moment in time, given the metrics where they are --  we've been here before, we don't need to make up new things and how do we take action," said Foulkes. She cited that she would have increased testing in November and called in the National Guard.

 

On CVS and Her Role in the Opioid Crisis

Beyond the federal court decision in Ohio finding CVS and other major pharmacy chains guilty for their roles in the opioid, CVS is facing lawsuits in many parts of the country.

Daniel Cameron, the Attorney General in Kentucky has sued CVS, saying, “During the height of the opioid epidemic, CVS allowed millions of dosage units of opioids to flood Kentucky’s borders, fueling the crisis and devastating thousands of families and communities across the Commonwealth,” said Cameron. “As both distributor and pharmacy, CVS was in a unique position to monitor and stop the peddling of these highly-addictive drugs from their stores, yet they ignored their own safeguard systems. By bringing this lawsuit on behalf of the people of Kentucky, we are holding CVS accountable for these decisions and for contributing to a man-made crisis that tragically led to the loss of life of thousands of Kentuckians.”

Foulkes said in response to questions about the lawsuits and her role, "I want to start by saying I am absolutely devastated for the families that have gone through this -- it is just crushing for them and for me to think about that. I'm also really angry I am angry because Purdue Pharma, in particular, lied to all of us and that really makes me angry."

"All I can say is that as soon as we saw what was going on, we took action and I feel very strongly about that and I'll give you a particular example. One of the big issues about oversupply is there's too many pills in people's medicine cabinets after they get minor surgery -- so i took a leadership role with leaders across the different parts of the drugstore sector and we made sure that we fought for legislative changes," she added.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW ABOVE

 

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