Corporations

Big business groups -- including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and Information Technology Association of America (the e-voting machine manufacturers' lobby group) -- have formed the Coalition for Economic Growth and American Jobs.

"Rep. Billy Tauzin delivered a $540 billion prescription-drug benefit for Medicare. Now, the Louisiana Republican is leaving Congress for a $2 million-a-year job in the drug industry. When it comes to exposing your principles, Rep. Tauzin makes Janet Jackson look coy," the Palm Beach Post writes. Tauzin, who chaired the House Science and Commerce Committee, pushed through the early morning passage of the Medicare bill in December.

"Last year the Bush Administration encouraged American chemical companies to lobby against European efforts to strengthen the regulation of thousands of chemicals contained in household, industrial and personal products," BushGreenWash.org writes. "When the chemical industry was slow to respond, Administration officials took it upon themselves to launch 'an unusually aggressive campaign' to pressure the European Union into watering down its comprehensive reform efforts. Documents uncovered by the Environmental Health Fund, using the Freedom of Information Act, showed the U.S.

A Canadian professor of pediatrics and medicine vows to continue speaking out on the risk of a drug used to treat thalassemia, a hereditary blood disorder. Dr. Nancy Olivieri lost her attempt to get her research on the harmful side effects of deferiprone looked at by the committee for proprietary and medicinal products (CPMP) that regulates drugs in Europe. "This ruling guarantees that only a drug company attempting to sell a drug will control the content of the scientific data submitted or not submitted to the European CPMP," she said.