Word: phrma
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...even more influential group: the pharmaceutical drug industry. Sources tell TIME that chief executives of several drug houses called White House officials to complain that Wood was too aggressive on drug-safety issues. In early February, the industry's lobbying arm, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PHRma), sent e-mails to company reps in Washington warning that Wood's appointment was imminent. Attached were copies of medical journal articles by Wood in which he called for curbs on drug ads aimed at consumers and for more money to monitor the safety of drugs on the market...
Drug companies are among the Administration's staunchest allies, the source of more than $12 million for Bush and the G.O.P. in the past election (compared with $5.5 million for the Democrats). A PHRma spokesman says his group took no position on the Wood nomination and denied that the e-mail to drug execs was a call to arms, describing it as "informational." Other industry sources, however, say PHRma coordinated lobbying by CEOs from major companies, who called such key Administration figures as political adviser Karl Rove and Budget Director Mitch Daniels, a former top official of Eli Lilly...
...Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America has mounted a fierce campaign of lobbying against an amendment to an agriculture spending bill currently before the Senate that would allow Americans to import prescription drugs from Mexico and Canada. Relaxing restrictions would lead to the import of killer counterfeit drugs, the PhRMA warns in a full-page ad in Wednesday's Washington Post. Not only that, "the importation of prescription drugs also means spoiled, adulterated, impotent or subpotent medicines making their way into American medicine cabinets." But critics believe they're simply covering up for price-gouging, and have adapted the amendment...
...opposing lobbyists have a slightly different spin. Proprietary medications can work better and sometimes protect consumers from potentially unsafe or ineffective generic compounds, according to Alan Holmer, president of PhRMA, a lobby for the brand holders. He derides Mylan's lobbying as "nothing more than a brazen attempt to deflect attention from the generic industry's embarrassment at its recent dramatic price increase and calls for antitrust investigations of their practices...