Pfizer - Political Lobbying

Political Lobbying

Pfizer is a leading member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, a Washington D.C.-based coalition of over 400 major companies and NGOs that advocates for a larger International Affairs Budget, which funds American diplomatic, humanitarian, and development efforts abroad.

Pfizer is one of the single largest lobbying interests in United States politics. For example in the first 9 months of 2009 Pfizer spent over $16.3 million on lobbying US congressional lawmakers, making them the sixth largest lobbying interest in the US (following Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which ranked fourth but also represents many of their interests). A spokeswoman for Pfizer said the company “wanted to make sure our voice is heard in this conversation” in regards to the company's expenditure of $25 million in 2010 to lobby health care reform.

Pfizer's primary interests are opposition of Congressional efforts to attach a prescription drug benefit to Medicare and opposition to generic drugs entering US markets. Pfizer also purportedly proposed a ban on all lawsuits against manufacturers of body implant parts which was proposed in the United States Congress as part of tort reform legislation.

According to U.S. State Department cables released by the whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks, Pfizer "lobbied against New Zealand getting a free trade agreement with the United States because it objected to New Zealand’s restrictive drug buying rules and tried to get rid of New Zealand’s former health minister, Helen Clark, in 1990.