Big Pharma Strikes Back At Moore

As Michael Moore's new movie is making headlines across the country and even the world, do not expect Big Pharma to take this assault to their operations lying down. They have all known that Moore was filming this documentary and have been preparing to fire back at whatever Moore puts on the screen. Pfizer, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Amgen and the rest do not care that SiCKO has received a tremendous and well-received response. All they care about is their profits and for the system in Washington that rewards them to stay exactly how it has been going since Richard Nixon approved Kaiser Permanente's HMO system in the early 1970s.

The New York Sun reports on the counter-offensive:

"If you're in the policy business, your job is to find these teachable moments," the Cato Institute's director of health policy studies, Michael Cannon, said.

Cato has scheduled a breakfast symposium on Capitol Hill tomorrow featuring clips from "Sicko" and other movies documenting the health care industry. The event is expected to draw 170 guests, including congressional staffers. The "robust" turnout forced a change of venue three times to accommodate a growing list of attendees, Mr. Cannon said. "It's a nice problem to have," he said.

Cato scholars began last year writing Web log entries and op-eds on Mr. Moore's film, as well as posting pod casts to the Institute's Web site.

According to SourceWatch, a left-leaning group that tracks groups shaping public policy, several organizations staging responses to "Sicko" receive funding from pharmaceutical companies, including the Manhattan Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Pacific Research Institute.

Out of all these groups, none represent patients and consumers of the health care industry. This is all about the industry and their friends on Capitol Hill. The only people interested in fighting Michael Moore are those that profit off of the horror stories you learn about in SiCKO. For these people greed comes before humanity, and if they think they can refute the tidal wave of information from Moore with their well paid pails lobbyists, they have another thing coming.