I apologize for it's length in advance but I feel the importance of
this article and what it means to free choice (and that is what is
really on the line here) is more important than the wordiness of the
article. We need to contact our political reps to stop these giants
before we become victims against our will ONCE AGAIN!! So read and
head...
For the full three pages use these links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/04/business/04PHAR.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/04/business/04PHAR.html?pagewanted=2
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/04/business/04PHAR.html?pagewanted=3
You will have to become an online subscriber to the NY Times
Sandy thanks again woman......
A Muscular Lobby Tries to Shape Nation's Bioterror Plan
By LESLIE WAYNE and MELODY PETERSEN
With anthrax spores turning up all over Washington, plenty of people
are heading out of town.
Not those in the drug industry.
Executives of the major pharmaceutical companies have been hopping
trains and planes to the nation's capital, where they are staging an
enormous lobbying campaign, at the highest levels of government, to
help shape the nation's bioterrorist plan — and beyond.
So far, they have had some remarkable victories. While the government
has struggled to make sure the nation will have enough drugs to treat
biological weapons that were largely hypothetical a few months ago,
drug companies have managed to stave off many actions that would harm
them, like violating patents or forcing them to supply free drugs.
As that success shows, the pharmaceutical lobby, which represents the
nation's biggest drug makers, from Eli Lilly to Pfizer (news/quote)
to Merck (news/quote), is both large and politically adroit and, if
anything, more sophisticated than when it gained fame in the early
1990's for helping to defeat the Clinton administration health plan.
It has more lobbyists than there are members of Congress — 625 who
are registered. It had a combined lobbying and campaign contribution
budget in 1999 and 2000 of $197 million, larger than any other
industry. Now it is harnessing those resources to influence major
policy decisions being made by the Bush administration that may well
influence public health issues and industry profitability for years
to come — much to the dismay of many consumer groups and others.
Because of the anthrax scare, and all the attention given to Cipro,
the anti-anthrax drug of choice, that access has been enormous. In
recent weeks, the chief executives and other top executives of Merck,
Bristol-Myers Squibb (news/quote), Bayer, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and
Johnson & Johnson (news/quote), along with trade association
officials, have been meeting regularly with Bush cabinet members. On
one occasion, with executives from other industries, pharmaceutical
executives met with President Bush in New York to discuss the
administration's response to terrorism. Drug company executives have
offered to send scores of industry scientists, now on their payrolls,
to work in government agencies in what the industry calls a gift to
the nation, but critics say it is both a conflict of interest and a
way for the industry to get a toehold in government.
In return, at these top-level meetings, industry executives and
lobbyists are seeking exemption from antitrust regulations, reduction
of the timetable for getting new drugs to market for treating the
ills of biological warfare, and immunity from lawsuits for any
vaccines they develop to combat bioterrorism. The administration,
those in the meeting say, has offered other help, asking the
pharmaceutical executives to identify the regulatory barriers they
would like to see eliminated for this fight.
Last Wednesday, for instance, a dozen industry lobbyists and
executives, among them Peter R. Dolan, chief executive of Bristol-
Myers, and Raymond V. Gilmartin, chief executive of Merck, met for an
hour and a half in the Roosevelt Room of the White House with Tom
Ridge, the director of homeland security. According to one person at
the meeting, Mr. Ridge was so impressed with what the industry
executives said that he responded: "I'm grateful for your offers of
assistance. I accept."
That , according to the meeting's participant, reflected "a true
partnership between the federal government and America's
pharmaceutical companies."
Industry executives say they are just trying to help. "We are part of
the nation's defense system," said Mr. Dolan, who has met with
President Bush in New York and with Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary
of health and human services, and Mr. Ridge in Washington. "As an
industry, there is a real opportunity for us to give our resources in
a time of great need."
But that partnership is troubling to some industry watchdog groups.
They say the cozy relationship threatens to compromise regulatory
standards on new applications of medicines at a time when millions of
Americans may be seeking new drugs and vaccines. They worry that the
industry's efforts to present its proposals as patriotic gestures
mask an effort to increase its power in Washington and to improve its
image while still protecting its financial interests. Critics also
say consumer groups and executives from generic drug companies, which
make cheaper copies of well-known drugs, have been conspicuously
absent from any administration meetings.
"I am concerned that the industry is trying to subvert the normal
regulatory process," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the health
research group of Public Citizen, a Washington research
organization. "These meetings have no transparency, no openness nor
any involvement of the public. It's a dangerous precedent."
The pharmaceutical industry, of course, has not always had its way.
Some of its efforts to speed federal drug approval have failed.
Federal regulators are actively investigating several companies'
attempts to keep generic drugs off the market and are taking a harsh
look at some marketing practices.
There is no lobby in Washington as large, as powerful or as well-
financed as the pharmaceutical lobby. Battle-honed over a number of
health care initiatives that began with the creation of the Medicare
program in the 1960's, the industry spent $177 million on lobbying in
1999 and 2000 — a good $50 million more than its nearest rivals, the
insurance and telecommunications industries.
Thanks to Washington's well-oiled revolving door between government
and business, the industry is able to claim friends in especially
high places. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is the former chief
executive of the drug maker G. D. Searle, for example, and Mitchell
E. Daniels Jr., the White House budget director, is a former Eli
Lilly executive.
Even more important, more than half the drug industry's 625
registered lobbyists are either former members of Congress or former
Congressional staff members and government employees, according to a
report from Public Citizen. Former members of Congress who now work
for the industry include Beryl F. Anthony Jr., Birch Bayh, Dennis
DeConcini, Vic Fazio, Norman F. Lent, Robert L. Livingston, Bill
Paxon, Robert S. Walker and Vin Weber. While in Congress, many of
them led key legislative committees, and they still have close ties
to those now in power.
Continued click on links 2 and 3 above for the rest....
Also....CONGRATULATIONS STACIE.....HOPE YOU AND THOMAS ARE DOING WELL.....
Respectfully,
Deborah Delp
What we do with our lives depends on our
motivation to do something with our lives.
D.A.Delp
Autism Awareness:
If Not Now, Then When?
If Not Us, Then Who?
My Slanite (Toast) to you:
May the Best of Your Past
Be the Worst of Your Future
Homepage:
http://members.tripod.com/the_delps
Club:
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/autismandvaccinations
