Just Say Yes To Drugs: Drug Lobby Pumps Money and Ads Into Nevada Race for Reid

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is struggling for reelection this year and his friends have lined up to help him. This week, Nevadans saw a series of glossy, high-priced ads for Reid paid for by his friends in the pharmaceutical industry. Reid fought to include huge benefits for drug companies in the health care bill and now the industry is running ads touting his work for “Nevada families.”

The ads praise Reid for saving jobs and for understanding that “good jobs with good benefits [mean] a better future.” One ad asks voters to encourage Reid “to keep fighting for Nevada families.”

The campaign appears the work of Billy Tauzin a former member of Congress who secured windfall profits for the drug industry and was then made president of the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). The Obama administration worked with Tauzin to craft the health care bill to the approval of this powerful lobby. Critics allege that the Obama Administration is secretly pushing drug lobbyists to “protect their own” in pouring money into Reid’s campaign and others.

Reid has received $154,000 from Pharma PACs as of May 30. That makes him the second most supported politician of the drug industry after Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.

Source: Examiner.