http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7280/192/d
BMJ 2001;322:192 ( 27 January )
News roundup
US drug companies help pay for Bush inauguration
Fred Charatan Florida
The glitz of President George W Bush’s inauguration ceremony owed a
considerable debt to the US pharmaceutical industry, which paid $1.7m (£1.1m)
towards the estimated $17m bill for the occasion.
Its generosity at the crowning moment of President Bush’s journey to the
White House mirrored the substantial support that it gave to the Texan governor
during his election campaign. Over three quarters of the industry’s
contributions went to Republicans.
Last November, the non-profit watchdog group Public Citizen predicted that
the prescription drug industry would spend about $230m during the election. The
money would be spent three ways—on supporting the industry’s lobbyists in
Congress, on campaign contributions, and on issue advertisements in print and
on television by Citizens for Better Medicare, a front group for the industry.
Drug company lobbying for the first half of 2000 reached $42.9m, according
to disclosure reports, said Public Citizen. The leader was Schering-Plough at
$3 880 000.
"Most of that money will go toward protecting the drug industry’s
extraordinary profits and preventing consumers from obtaining affordable
prescriptions," said Public Citizen's president, Joan Clayton.
The drug industry opposed President Clinton’s plan to extend the Medicare
programme so that it partially covered the cost of prescription drugs for its
beneficiaries (BMJ 2000;320;1093). It ran a series of TV ads at the
time, which said, "I don’t want big government in my medicine
cabinet."
It also opposed price controls on drugs legislated last year in the state of
Maine. Alan Holmer, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers
of America, condemned the Maine law as "anti-patient, anti-innovation,
anti-business, and we believe unconstitutional." He said that price
controls on drugs would not help those who lack coverage with prescription
drugs, but would harm those waiting for new cures and treatments for such
diseases as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and AIDS.
"Americans don’t need a patchwork of state price control approaches,
whose overall effect would be to slow the development of new and better
medicines," Mr Holmer said, "We need national insurance legislation
that would extend insurance coverage to those who lack it."
During last October’s US Senate debate on reimportation of prescription
drugs the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said, "We
strongly oppose the drug reimport bill and urge the Senate to reject it. For
the sake of American patients, senators should heed the warnings of nearly a
dozen former Food and Drug Administration commissioners who say that
reimportation will put patient health at risk."
For their contributions to President Bush’s victory, the drug manufacturers
hope for a halt in moves to regulate the cost of patented prescription drugs, a
vigorous campaign against the production of generic substitutes abroad, and
prohibition of reimportation of drugs whose purity and efficacy cannot be
guaranteed.
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BMJ supported by Zyban
Paul Thill, clinical professor of
pharmacy practice , Purdue University, Indiana, USA
bmj.com, 26 Jan 2001 [Response]
Other related articles in BMJ:
NEWS
Clinton fires latest salvo in Medicare drug benefit war.
Fred Charatan
BMJ 2000 320: 1093.
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