Clearing The Air

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Obama administration proves politics can be profitable.....and campaign promises are meant to be broken

Politics can be profitable.

First, market a product like Nicoderm, Nicoderm CQ, Nicorette, Nicotrol, and Commit; all produced or owned by Johnson & Johnson Companies. Second, if sales fall flat; increase demand by using the force of government, thru lobbying efforts, to create new users of your product...new users such as former smokers forced to quit due to smoking bans and higher tobacco taxes. Of course you'll have to hire or create lobbying partners who share your greed for money....... enter Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK) has lobbied in favor of smoking bans for years, but their ties to Nicoderm manufacturer J & J are not as tenuous as you might imagine. J & J has hedged their bet in the alternative nicotine product marketplace by funding smoking ban lobbyists thru their political partner the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF was founded by Johnson & Johnson's founder and has as many former J & J board members as their current board of directors. In fact CTFK only exists because Johnson & Johnson's partner, RWJF, infused $84 million into the startup, single agenda, lobbying firm. Now enter William Corr, former executive director for Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, is now Obama's pick for the number 2 position at the Department for Health & Human Services.......so much for the campaign promise of not appointing any lobbyists within his administration.

More here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124139960819782109.html

President Barack Obama says lobbyists won't run his administration, but he picked an antitobacco lobbyist with ties to the pharmaceutical industry as the No. 2 official at the Department of Health and Human Services.

....But Mr. Corr's nomination raises another question: In an era when industries often make financial donations to public-interest groups that support policies that help those industries, when are public-interest advocates conflicted by the funding that supports the causes they advocate?

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has received millions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies that would benefit from the organization's work to reduce smoking because they sell products that help people quit, such as Nicorette gum and NicoDerm patches.

Not exactly the wholesome and transparent change in Washington D.C. that candidate Barack Hussein Obama promised now is it?

Update: J & J spent $1.5 million lobbying Obama White House for laws that will increase their profits.......just as smoking bans have.