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As a political strategist, Big Pharma lobbyist Billy Tauzin is starting to look less like Dr. Faustus and more like Jack, trading away his industry for magic beans. Last week Mr. Tauzin ostentatiously blabbed to the media that his industry's deal to help fund ObamaCare with $80 billion in prescription-drug discounts was really protection money. In particular, he bragged that he had secured promises from the White House that President Obama would fend off Congressional Democrats who want to "negotiate" drug prices, which in practice means price controls. For days, the White House continued to confirm Mr. Tauzin's understanding: "We...

WASHINGTON — The drug industry has authorized its lobbyists to spend as much as $150 million on television commercials supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul, beginning over the August Congressional recess, people briefed on the plans said Saturday. The unusually large scale of the industry’s commitment to the cause helps explain some of a contentious back-and-forth playing out in recent days between the odd-couple allies over a deal that the White House struck with the industry in June to secure its support. The terms of the deal were not fully disclosed. Both sides had announced that the drug industry would...

I'm a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I'm appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying arm to buy their support.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall, according to numerous officials, a staggering sum that could dwarf attempts to derail Obama's top domestic priority.

In a breathtaking act of bravado, Wyeth is trying to take away your right to access bioidentical hormones and compounding pharmacies by enlisting so-called women’s and physician groups like The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG which is funded in part by Wyeth), North American Menopause Society (NAMS) and The American Medical Women's Association (AMWA also a 'partner' of Wyeth) which have become nothing more than covert "fronts" for the pharmaceutical industry. In October 2005 Wyeth filed a citizen petition with the FDA essentially asking for elimination of the compounding of bioidentical hormone option for women of all ages....

ew England Journal of Politics January 16, 2006; Page A14 Merck scored a court victory late last month, convincing all but one federal juror that it acted responsibly in developing and marketing its Vioxx painkiller. What makes the outcome more notable is that it came despite the efforts of Merck's latest accuser, the New England Journal of Medicine. Accusations aren't the usual fare of august medical journals, so it's worth trying to understand the publication's self-insertion into the Merck litigation. Its extraordinary decision to publish a critical statement about a Vioxx study it ran years ago is being hailed by...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - For more than a decade, a trade group representing the nation's biggest drug companies was content to sit on the sidelines of California's legislative races. But after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed four bills in September that would have made it easier for Californians to buy cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Alliance quickly emerged as one of California's major players and one of the governor's key supporters. The PhRMA group jumped into state legislative races late in the 2004 campaign - only two weeks after Schwarzenegger's Sept. 29 veto of the...

Thursday, January 27, 2005 Health Care in the U.S. In watching the Health Care Conference live on C-span 2 this morning, I listened as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton brought up excellent points regarding proposed healthcare reform, and reforms already in place and scheduled to take effect January of 2006. I couldn't help but wonder, however, if her words were for the occassion, or if she was sincere. Hard to tell about her - being a Democrat and all. Hopefully she wasn't considering her party affiliations when she wrote her speech. She spoke of the ways in which prescription coverage will...

"Less than 10 percent of the U.S.$73 billion spent globally every year on health research is allocated to study 90 percent of the world's health problems," claimed a report from the Global Forum for Health Research (GFHR) in 2002. The GFHR is an independent foundation under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO) that aims to redirect global research priorities toward the needs of the world's poorest people. Its report added, "For example, of 1,233 drugs that reached the global market between 1975 and 1997, 13 were for tropical infectious diseases that disproportionately affect the poor." The international medical...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version December 23, 2004, 8:32 a.m. Secret SantaDrug industry gives to third-world's poor. In this season of giving, it is a sleigh-sized irony that the global pharmaceutical industry behaves like Santa, yet often is denounced as a multinational Scrooge. The drug industry "needs to moderate its prices and make them more Transparent and equitable," Harvard Medical School lecturer Marcia Angell, M.D. wrote in the Financial Times last July. "In short, it needs to curb its greed." Liberal columnist Molly Ivins has decried Big Pharma's "greedy, bloodsucking,...

The American healthcare system is the best in the world. Or so we are often told. But is it really true? It is certainly the best system for drug companies, which can charge the highest prices in the world to some U.S. consumers. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that average prices for patented drugs in 25 other top industrialized nations were 35% to 55% lower than in the United States.

Washington — As a primary human drive, not even the pursuit of prolonged pleasure can compete with the avoidance of pain. That is why the sudden emergence of the painkiller issue strikes home to so many who are afflicted with pain ranging from splitting headache to crippling arthritis. In recent weeks, people seeking relief have been afflicted by the overreaction to reports that several new pain alleviators, taken in large doses by especially vulnerable patients, may increase the risk of heart problems. These new, expensive medicines were developed to reduce pain without the risk of side effects like ulcers that...

WASHINGTON -- Create a company. Raise money from investors. Spend billions of dollars. Develop life-saving products. Suffer the vagaries of the marketplace. Be vilified. That seems to be the lot in life of pharmaceutical firms. In early December a Washington Post article headlined: "Chemical Compound Shows Promise Against Tuberculosis: New Medicine Is Best Hope Against Disease in 40 Years." But success is never assured: witness the decline in Merck's stock price after it withdrew the drug Vioxx and the similar hit suffered by Pfizer when the same health concerns were raised about Celebrex. And politicians never let up. Democratic presidential...

ON CAPITOL HILL Lawmaker tries to block mental-health screening Rep. Paul offers language to require parental consent for evaluating kids Posted: November 18, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is making a final attempt this week to lessen the impact of a new program that calls for all the nation's children to be screened for mental-health problems, offering language to the federal omnibus spending bill that would require parental consent before such testing could be done. As WorldNetDaily reported, in September Paul attempted to have the program removed from Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations Act....

September 7 The American tradition of parents deciding what is best for their children is, yet again, under attack. The pharmaceutical industry has convinced President Bush to support mandatory mental-health screening for every child in America, including preschool children, and the industry is now working to convince Congress as well. But mandatory screening alone is not what the pharmaceutical industry wants. The real payoff for the drug companies is the forced drugging of children that will result -- as we learned tragically with Ritalin -- even when parents refuse. Congressman Ron Paul, an OB/GYN physician for over 30 years, is...

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"/> June 27, 2004 As Doctors Write Prescriptions, Drug Company Writes a CheckBy GARDINER HARRIS he check for $10,000 arrived in the mail unsolicited. The doctor who received it from the drug maker Schering-Plough said it was made out to him personally in exchange for an attached "consulting" agreement that required nothing other than his commitment to prescribe the company's medicines. Two other physicians said in separate interviews that they, too, received checks unbidden from Schering-Plough, one of the world's biggest drug companies. "I threw mine away," said the first doctor, who spoke on...

E-mail Author Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version June 22, 2004, 8:56 a.m. PharmaPez?Drug studies; are as fake as sugar pills. By Michael Fumento Americans have a love-hate relationship with pharmaceutical companies. We're delighted that they've done so much to increase the quality and lengths of our lives and that they consistently develop better products. We just wish the prices were a bit lower — perhaps on the order of Pez candy. Unfortunately some "citizens groups" exploit this ambiguity with self-published "studies" claiming drug companies exist only to gouge us — especially seniors. One such,...

Herbal alternatives are under attack. Download and print flyers. The flyers urge consumers to tell their congressmen and senators to attend the JUNE 17th Herbal Alternatives Congressional Briefing to learn the truth about herbs & health. It is critical that Congress attends this briefing because: HERBAL ALTERNATIVES ARE UNDER ATTACK. News headlines misinform and mislead decision makers. Products you depend on for your health could soon be banned. MANY CAPITOL HILL STAFFERS AND POLICY MAKERS DO NOT UNDERSTAND NATURAL HEALTH INDUSTRY ISSUES. Since DSHEA was passed in 1994, about 50% of Congressmen and Senators and 80% of Congressional aides have...

WASHINGTON -- Ten months ago, when concerns arose about a possible link between children taking antidepressant drugs and suicide attempts, senior officials at the Food and Drug Administration ordered their leading expert to head up an examination of the evidence. EMAIL THIS PRINT THIS MOST POPULAR When the government scientist filed his report last winter, however, his bosses decided to keep it secret — even though it found that children who took the drugs were twice as likely to be involved in serious suicide-related behavior as those who did not. Instead of revealing the findings, senior FDA officials ordered more...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House's top Democrat, Nancy Pelosi of California, strongly criticized a Republican lawmaker Wednesday for his consideration of a lucrative job offer from the pharmaceutical industry -- an offer that came weeks after he helped to negotiate a sweeping Medicare bill that established a prescription drug benefit for America's seniors.</p>