[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19402-19403]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                       FDA'S LOBBYING QUESTIONED

  (Mr. BROWN of Ohio asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, in today's Roll Call, the Capitol 
Hill newspaper of record, there is an article, FDA's Lobbying 
Questioning. Let me read a couple of paragraphs:
  ``In a rare lobbying campaign by a Federal agency, the Food and Drug 
Administration has formed an unofficial

[[Page 19403]]

alliance with the pharmaceutical industry to urge House Members to vote 
against a bill that could flood the Nation with cheap prescription 
drugs from Canada and overseas.
  ``The FDA's extraordinary moves to kill the bill'' this article says, 
``and the informal lobbying partnership between a Federal regulator and 
an industry it oversees, has come under fire from several Members who 
support this legislation.''
  Mr. Speaker, this may not be illegal, what the Food and Drug 
Administration has done, but it is certainly untoward, it is certainly 
unprecedented.
  In my 11 years as a Member of Congress I have never seen a Federal 
agency use its civil servants to lobby Congress so directly and so 
brazenly; and what is particularly outrageous is that they are doing 
that against American consumers, against America's elderly, against 
people who need lower-priced prescription drugs. The drug industry's 
contributions to the Bush administration and to far too many people in 
this Chamber unfortunately might be paying off.

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