Vioxx recall and Washington politicians

There are now reports that the House Energy and Commerce Committee is also joining efforts to investigate what went wrong and how Vioxx recall was handled by the FDA and Merck. They are following the Senate Finance Committee that has already completed some hearings on the issue.

If you look at the speed at which these politicians (mind you these are the same politicians that have received millions of dollars in contributions from pharmaceutical industry and/or Merck) have moved, you would start to believe that they are truly concerned about Americans and are responding to the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. Not so fast!

Sources inside Washington tell the Vioxx recall blog that these hearings are essentially staged to appease the public and are typically organized with behind-the-screen collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry lobbyists (who by the way outnumber representatives of American people in Washington; latest estimate is 600 lobbyists with loads of cash at their disposal). All the way to who will be called, what questions will be asked, and who will try to act as a tough, are all decided in consultation with the drug companies. It is fairly common to circulate speeches and questions ahead of time.

It is hard to be harsh to people like Raymond Gilmartin (CEO of Merck) who have done all they could to get these politicians elected by pumping millions of dollars into the campaigns.

The Washington politics will get even uglier as the fight becomes more political, particularly because the Bush administration wants to deprive the American people of their legal right to sue companies like Merck. Many experts believe that Merck knew as early as 2000 that Vioxx was killing Americans but it started an aggressive program to hide the facts so that it could generate yearly sales of $2.5 billion. At the same time, Merck kept the politicians on its side by writing checks to every politician that mattered to their cause.

By some estimates over 55,000 Americans may have died due to a deliberate strategy by Merck. These deaths could have been avoided if greed of a pharmaceutical company was not a core component of its strategy. If Merck was not a US company in bed with the current administration in Washington it would have been described as a terrorist.

Recommended link: Complete coverage of Vioxx recall