Drug Industry Executives Fear Democrats will stop Drug Industry profiteering

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drug company lobbyists concede that the House is likely to pass a bill intended to drive down drug prices, but they are determined to block such legislation in the Senate. If that strategy fails, they are counting on President Bush to veto any bill that passes. With 49 Republicans in the Senate next year, the industry is confident that it can round up the 34 votes normally needed to uphold a veto.
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Billy Tauzin, president of that group, a lobbying organization for brand-name drug companies, recently urged Representative Edolphus Towns, Democrat of New York, to seek a position as chairman of a powerful House subcommittee, said Karen Johnson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Towns. The subcommittee has authority over Medicare and the Food and Drug Administration.

Democrats have yet to decide who will head the subcommittee.

Mr. Tauzin, a former congressman, also met with Senator Byron L. Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat who has been trying for six years to allow drug imports from Canada. The industry vehemently opposes such legislation.

James C. Greenwood, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, another trade group, said, “There is a lot of pent-up animosity among Democrats against the pharmaceutical industry.”

Mr. Greenwood, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, said he had a list of 37 Congressional Democrats whom he intended to call in the next month.

Amgen, the biotechnology company, recently disclosed that it had retained as a lobbyist George C. Crawford, a former chief of staff for Representative Nancy Pelosi of California. Ms. Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, is in line to become speaker in January and has said that the House will immediately take up legislation authorizing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers.

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How anyone can claim the government operates in the interests of the people simply confounds me. Laws and legislation are for sale to the highest bidder, and the highest bidder will always be corporate interests.

The way to stop this is campaign finance reform, and not Fake Moderate John McCain's version which isn't reform at all, and which ought to include a waiting time of 10 years before former congress people can go to work as lobbyists for any industry, and elections financed strictly by tax dollars.