From HealthNewsReview.org: The Alliance for Patient Access (AfPA), a nonprofit organization that claims to advocate for patients to have access to FDA-approved treatments, has consistently worked to oppose policies that would curb high drug costs. The nonprofit receives the majority of its funding from the pharmaceutical industry.
Thanks for alerting us to this very important article. I have bookmarked the site itself for inclusion in my list of regular news sources.
I would like to point out that the use of PR firms and the fake “institutes” and fake grassroots organizations they organize (called “astroturf”) was a system that was developed by Big Tobacco’s principal PR firm in the 1960s, immediately following the publication of the Surgeon General’s report on smoking in 1963 or 64, I forget which. At that time it was crucial for Big Tobacco to start making sure they controlled the conversation about smoking, and they did this largely by paying fringe “experts” (sort of like climate deniers today) to produce spurious position papers, etc., and then distributing them to the media and counting on false equivalence on the part of newspaper and magazine editors to gin up the idea that there was still a “controversy” about the effects of smoking.
For a detailed account of how they did this, which I assure you is quite educational (or it was for me), check out the book The Cigarette Century, which I believe was produced by a Harvard Medical historian. I’ve never seen the world the same way since I read it.
