The pharmaceutical industry's stealth influence peddling, directed toward healthcare professionals and the media, is carried out through public relations front groups who are bankrolled by drug manufacturers. For example, Professional Risk Management Services was retained by Eli Lilly to assuage doctors' fears about prescribing Lilly's toxic antipsychotic drug, Zyprexa, lest they be sued for the harm caused by the drug..............

http://www.pvupdate.com/prgs/plr11/FPM.pdf


PR firms contracted by drug companies retain medical professionals--academics and former public officials--to disseminate propaganda which is passed on to the public as infomercials that are misrepresented as impartial drug safety information. No matter how compelling the evidence of harm, patented drugs are described as "safe and effective."

The most insidious pharmaceutical industry front group is the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI), which is the stomping ground of high ranking FDA officials-- both current and former. We first learned about CMPI--its funding source and smear campaigns--from an investigative report by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer in Slate (May 2008). They reported that former FDA associate commissioner, Peter Pitts, is President of CMPI as well as Senior Vice President for Health Affairs at Manning, Selvage & Lee (MS&L), one of the largest PR firms whose major clients are the pharmaceutical company giants. See Client list....................

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MS%26L


In 2006, CMPI took in $1.4 million from pharmaceutical companies of which $210,000 was spent to influence the media and by extension, the public at large. See.........

http://www.slate.com/id/2190775/SLATE


Below is the second of a two-part report in OpEdNews.com by Evelyn Pringle which describes how high ranking FDA officials move freely to and from positions in Big Pharma's PR front groups-CMPI / MS&L. For example, FDA's head of the Center For Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), Dr. Janet Woodcock, attended the launching party for CMPI, as did former FDA Commissioner, Dr. Mark McClellan, who was the keynote speaker. CMPI recently announced that Dr. McClellan will chair its Patient-Centric Health Forum...............

http://www.cmpi.org/issues/the-patient-centric-health-forum/


AND MAIN LINK..........................

http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2008/08/corruption-pharma-cmpi-ms-drugwonks-and.html