Bush Administration Has Cozy Relationship With The Pharmaceutical Companies

A recent Wall Street Journal Article documented the cozy relationship between the Bush Administration and the Pharmaceutical companies. Many states have solid consumer protections concerning warning labels and consumers right to protect themselves when they are injured by a harmful drug.

The Pharmaceutical companies have been working with the Bush Administration to circumvent these laws and to get complete immunity. Instead of going to the state or even going to Congress, the plan has been to use Administration Agencies to make rules that permanent the individual states laws.

The American Association for Justice through the use of the FOIA was able to obtain emails that list attendees of a meeting between Bradshaw and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) revealing the FDA chief counsel met with legal representatives from Pfizer, Wyeth, Eli Lilly, Berlex, Organon, Abbott Laboratories, Takeda, Sanofi-Aventis, Serono, AstraZeneca, Cephalon, Millenium, Eisai, Amgen, Astellas, GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Merck, and 3M.

Less than six months after this meeting, the agency would release its final physician labeling rule with complete immunity preemption language in the preamble, a complete about-face from the language in the proposed rule that specifically said the agency did not intend to preempt state law with the rule.

This is just one of the many areas where the Administration has been using preemption. All consumers should be concerned about this attack on their rights.