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Drugmakers are biggest lobby to sway congress Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/drugs/2005-04-25-drug-lobby-cover_x.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/drugs/2005-04-25-drug-lobby-cover_x.htm
Drugmakers go furthest to sway Congress
By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — When Sen. Bill Frist needed help in November for a quick tour celebrating the victories of newly elected Republican senators, he didn't have to look far. A Gulfstream corporate jet owned by drugmaker Schering-Plough was ready to zip the Senate majority leader to stops in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
Frist's political committee reimbursed the drugmaker $10,809, the equivalent of a first-class fare for the same trip on a commercial airline, as campaign rules require. The price, a fraction of the cost of a charter flight, was almost a wash for Frist; Schering had donated $10,000 to his committee in 2003-04. What he got was worth far more: the convenience, luxury and efficiency of flying on his own schedule.
The drug company's friendly gesture toward the Senate's most powerful member illustrates the political clout of the pharmaceutical industry. It will be needed in the months ahead as the industry faces the threat of increased federal regulation, brought on by mounting concerns about the safety of the nation's drug supply.
The drug companies' corporate planes have been made available not only to Frist, but also for dozens of trips taken by other powerful lawmakers. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., took at least four trips to GOP fundraising events in the past two years aboard Pfizer's Gulfstream.
Drug companies and their officials contributed at least $17 million to federal candidates in last year's elections, including nearly $1 million to President Bush and more than $500,000 to his opponent, John Kerry. At least 18 members of Congress received more than $100,000 apiece.
The industry also liberally funds think tanks and patient-advocacy groups that don't bear its name but often take its side; the National Patient Advocate Foundation, for instance, receives financial support from at least 10 drug companies. And the industry isn't above playing hardball, according to David Graham, a Food and Drug Administration scientist who got on its bad side.
Since 1998, drug companies have spent $758 million on lobbying — more than any other industry, according to government records analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group. In Washington, the industry has 1,274 lobbyists — more than two for every member of Congress.
"They are powerful," says Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "You can hardly swing a cat by the tail in that town without hitting a pharmaceutical lobbyist."
Over the years those lobbyists have been very successful, demonstrating that the industry knows politics as well as it knows chemistry. Drug companies won coverage for prescription drugs under Medicare in 2003 while blocking the government from negotiating prices downward. They have so far kept out imports of cheaper medicines from Canada and other countries. And they have protected a system that uses company fees to speed the drug-approval process.
"They win more than they should," says James Love, an industry critic who is director of the non-profit Consumer Project on Technology. "The one thing they have going for them is money."
The industry's deep inroads into the government are rooted in its dependence on federal decisions. The government determines which products drug companies can market and how they're labeled. The government buys massive quantities of drugs through Medicaid, the Veterans Administration and other programs. Once the new Medicare prescription drug benefit takes effect in 2006, the government will be paying 41% of Americans' drug bills, up from 24% now.
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