NAMI Got $23 Million From Pharma Companies
The New York Times is out today with an article on just how much money NAMI has been getting from Big Pharma in recent years–a ton, three-fourths of its total fundraising.
“The mental health alliance, which is hugely influential in many state capitols, has refused for years to disclose specifics of its fund-raising, saying the details were private.
“But according to investigators in Mr. Grassley’s office and documents obtained by The New York Times, drug makers from 2006 to 2008 contributed nearly $23 million to the alliance, about three-quarters of its donations.
“Even the group’s executive director, Michael Fitzpatrick, said in an interview that the drug companies’ donations were excessive and that things would change.
“‘For at least the years of ’07, ’08 and ’09, the percentage of money from pharma has been higher than we have wanted it to be,’ Mr. Fitzpatrick said.
“He promised that the industry’s share of the organization’s fund-raising would drop “significantly” next year.
“‘I understand that NAMI gets painted as being in the pockets of pharmaceutical companies, and somehow that all we care about is pharmaceuticals,’ Mr. Fitzpatrick said. ‘It’s simply not true.’”
“Mr. Fitzpatrick said Mr. Grassley’s scrutiny, which he described as understandable given the attention paid to potential conflicts of interest in medicine, had led his organization to begin posting on its Web site the names of companies that donate $5,000 or more. And he predicted that other patient and disease advocacy groups would be prodded by Mr. Grassley’s investigation to do the same.”
Gee, I remember the old days when only half of NAMI’s contributions came from pharma. What cheeses me off about all of this is that in 2005 Michael Fitzpatrick met with me and told me he was taking steps to make NAMI less pharma-dependent while, at the same time, the group was becoming more pharma-dependent.
As for making contributions available on NAMI’s website, they are indeed there now, but you’ve got to poke around the site pretty hard to find NAMI’s newfound transparency. Here are the Q1 and Q2 reports for this year.
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Posted in Furious Seasons