With an army of lobbyists 623 strong, the pharmaceutical industry "easily outnumbered" members of Congress and managed to gain ground in 2001 despite mounting pressure to make prescription drugs more affordable, Public Citizen.
While overall pharmaceutical industry spending on lobbying dropped to $78.1 million in 2001 from $92.3 million the year before, its lobbying efforts paid off, enabling the industry to preserve patent protections and profits.
Still, the 10 most active drug companies and industry groups spent $49.8 million on lobbying in 2001, a 16% increase from the previous year. The number of lobbyists they employ jumped 30% to 540.
The industry's main trade association, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), spent more on lobbying than any single drug company did, boosting its investment in hired lobbyists by 51% to $11.3 million last year.
The report also lists the most popular firms and lobbyists and documents their connections to Congress and other branches of the federal government. The industry's army of "hired guns" included 23 former members of Congress, it says. In all, 340, or 54%, previously worked for Uncle Sam.
Public Citizen June 13, 2002
When a patient asks me why the traditional paradigm is so mixed up and why most doctors don't treat the true cause of an illness, I give them the following answer:
Drug companies are the major force behind the warped approach to illness we have developed in western medicine. They have a huge influence on the majority of published studies and nearly all of medical education. This influence causes physicians to use their expensive symptomatic band-aids as solutions for people's problems.
Public Citizen does a fine job of documenting some of the reasons why this is so.
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