NAMI State Chapters and Pharma Funding

Pharmalot
By Ed Silverman
April 28th, 2010

The latest chapter in the saga involving the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, and the amount of money accepted from the pharmaceutical industry has millions being contributed to NAMI state chapters. And Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, who has been probing the relationship between patient groups and drugmakers and how this may influence the practice of medicine, wants to know what the national organization is doing to make the state chapters more transparent, and how the money is used.

You may recall that a majority of donations made to NAMI, a big advocacy group, have come from drugmakers in recent years. And the disclosure comes after protracted criticism of NAMI for coordinating lobbying efforts with drug makers and pushing legislation that also benefits the pharma industry. NAMI subsequently promised to accept less pharma funding (background). Until recently, NAMI refused for years to disclose specifics of its fund-raising. But according to Grassley, between 2006 and 2008, drugmakers contributed nearly $23 million to NAMI, or about three-quarters of its donations.

Now, in an April 26 letter to NAMI officials, he notes that state chapters are also big beneficiaries. California’s chapter received $632,000 last year (see here), while the Ohio chapter got $623,000 from drugmakers. Looked at another way, Lilly ponied up $2.2 million, AstraZeneca donated $1.6 million and Bristol-Myers Squibb gave $1.3 million. All three drugmakers market antipsychotics. The info was obtained by querying each state chapter, although Grassley is miffed that the Alabama, Arizona, Connecticutt and Hawaii chapters ignored him.

Connecting the Dots Between PhRMA and Congress

National Public Radio
February 22, 2010

The initial cost-cutting deal between PhRMA and Congress would have included $30 billion in savings related to the so-called doughnut hole in Medicare prescription-drug coverage.

The initial cost-cutting deal between PhRMA and Congress would have included $30 billion in savings related to the so-called doughnut hole in Medicare prescription-drug coverage.

Earlier this month, former congressman Billy Tauzin announced that he would step down from his position as president of the pharmaceutical industry's main lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — known by the shorthand PhRMA.

Last year, PhRMA spent $28 million lobbying in favor of a health care overhaul, after negotiating a deal with the White House and members of Congress. In that deal, the pharmaceutical industry pledged to reduce health care costs by $80 billion over 10 years.

By negotiating the secret deal, writer Paul Blumenthal explains, "the Obama administration got the biggest lobby in Washington and put them on the side of health care reform." Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry got a guarantee that "Congress would not legislate any cost-cutting measures that would make a dent in industry profits."

Blumenthal, a senior writer at the Sunlight Foundation, determined that Congress and PhRMA met dozens of times to negotiate that deal. He tells Terry Gross that he learned who attended the meetings by examining Federal Election Commission records, public visitor logs to the White House and the publicly available schedule of Sen. Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

"The major people are President Obama, [Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina," Blumenthal says. "Jim Messina is the former chief of staff and campaign manager to Sen. Max Baucus. You see Jim Messina pop up in meetings between pharmacy CEOs."

Blumenthal says that the CEOs of pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and AstraZeneca attended a series of meetings at the White House throughout the spring and summer, and agreed to spend more than $150 million on ads touting a health care overhaul. That spending and the subsequent lack of progress on the bill, Blumenthal notes, may be why Tauzin resigned.

"One of the key things to look at is the fact that pharmaceutical companies dumped $100 million to $150 million on ads and haven't gotten what they paid for," says Blumenthal. "They're not thrilled that they spent [that money] in ads, and this isn't going to pass."