Clinton/Gore Top Staffs: Pharmaceutical Background

John Podesta is the Chief of Staff for the President of the United States. He and his brother once ran Podesta and Associates together. Today it is run by his brother Anthony Podesta, and renamed Podesta.com. According to lobbying disclosure reports, Podesta.com represents PhRMA (the U.S trade association that represents the large pharmaceutical companies), as well as individual firms like Genentech, Genzyme (the firm that sells Ceredase, a U.S. National Institutes of Health invention, for as much as half a million dollars for a year of treatment), and Serono Laboratories.

According to 1997 lobbying disclosure reports, Podesta had ten lobbyists working on the Genentech account, six on the Genzyme account, and 11 persons working on the PhRMA account.

At Genentech, the vice president for government relations who hired Podesta was David Beier. Last April David Beier was hired by Vice President Gore to be his chief domestic policy advisor.

[Originally published online, titled "Washington, D.C. As a Small Town: podesta.com."]