The winds of change are in the air. The election has passed. Ads were everywhere as we were bombarded with every issue and every candidate. A lot of people don't know that many of these ads were not paid for by the candidate but by some other company or lobbying group. This election season Big Pharma got their brain trust together and realized that they needed to bet on a new set of ponies. Everyone thinks that Big Pharma is in bed with the Republicans. The truth is that Big Pharma is big business and they will sleep with anyone who can advance their agenda. It is kind of like that girl I went out with in.....whoops, sorry, too personal. Anyway, the pharmaceutical industry paid $13.2 million to run advertisements for 28 politicians (only 3 were republicans). The ads were produced by a nonprofit group called America's Agenda: Health Care for Kids which was created by PhRMA. This was all in response to the failure to pass the State Children's Health Insurance Program (Schip) during the Bush presidency. PhRMA was all about the needy kids. Sorry, could stop laughing as I typed that. Billy Tauzin, the former representative from Louisiana, is now PhRMA's president. You may remember him as the one who pushed the Medicare D program through when he was in congress and then switched over to PhRMA when he succeeded. Well, it seems "Mr. Conflict of Interest" was trying to kiss some serious ass with the Democrats by paying for their ads and such. We'll see how this works out in the next year or so. My hunch is that a politician is a politician, no matter what side of the aisle he or she is on. Big Pharma ain't stupid and can purchase a Democrat as easily as a Republican. And in the end the taxpayers get the bill.
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