Under attack, drug maker turned to Giuliani

[sabra]

Source: MSNBC/NYTIMES

In western Virginia, far from the limelight, United States Attorney John L. Brownlee found himself on the telephone last year with a political and legal superstar, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

For years, Mr. Brownlee and his small team had been building a case that the maker of the painkiller OxyContin had misled the public when it claimed the drug was less prone to abuse than competing narcotics. The drug was believed to be a factor in hundreds of deaths involving its abuse.

Mr. Giuliani, celebrated for his stewardship of New York City after 9/11, soon told the prosecutors they were wrong.

In 2002, the drug maker, Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., hired Mr. Giuliani and his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, to help stem the controversy about OxyContin. Among Mr. Giuliani’s missions was the job of convincing public officials that they could trust Purdue because they could trust him.

...

“He was just on the cover of Time Magazine, Man of the Year,” that former official, Robin Hogen, said. “Everyone was talking about his extraordinary leadership in 9/11.”

Giuliani Partners became involved in every aspect of the company’s problems, from the ballooning investigation by Mr. Brownlee to repairing its battered image. Mr. Giuliani personally took on some tasks, but a half-dozen members of his firm, including Bernard B. Kerik , the former New York City police commissioner, were also involved.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22416426/

[flashl]

1. Same topic in Editorials

Additional Info

[badgervan]

2. Nice

rudy is such a fraud. A legend in his own mind.

[kickysnana]

3. The inability of the State of NY to control the protesting of LymeRix..

led Glaco-Welcome to pull plans to put their world headquarters in NY and put it in MA. There is no money in cure but vaccines are money makers. The fact that this vaccine had been seen to cause incurable chronic arthritis in 1 in 5 people was not of concern to them. They were first and they were going to get their money no matter who got in their way.

Most clinical researchers in Lyme lived in NY. They were on a hit list used by the Medical Board to silence them. When it looked like the Assembly was going to put some due process into these previously scientific, now political investigations the then Governor called them off. We were not so lucky this year in CT. They got THE leading Lyme Pediatrician. I saw the miracles he made with kids who had been bedridden for years who went back to school and on with their lives. He can still practice but with supervision and it cost almost a million dollars for him to defend himself.

We are so screwn.