In bed with Big Pharma

Via Firedoglake, I came across this article in Salon regarding Hadassah Lieberman's work for the pharmaceuticals.

The Lieberman campaign has been complaining about Lamont supporters saying that Hadassah is a lobbyist for Big Pharma. The campaign says she's not even registered as a lobbyist. The article picks up from there:

In my original column on Mrs. Lieberman's work for Hill & Knowlton, I carefully refrained from labeling her a lobbyist, since I knew that she had not registered as one. Whether she should have registered is difficult to determine, however, because neither Gerstein nor anyone else associated with either the Lieberman campaign or Hill & Knowlton will discuss what services she performed for the company, one of the biggest lobby shops in Washington, which hired her in March 2005.

Her vague title was "senior counselor" in the firm's "health care and pharmaceuticals practice." In the press release announcing her return to consulting after a decade in retirement, she said, "I have had a life-long commitment to helping people gain better health care. I am excited about the opportunity to work with the talented team at Hill & Knowlton to counsel a terrific stable of clients toward that same goal."

It was a very nice and uplifting statement that revealed very, very little about exactly what Mrs. Lieberman would be doing for all those terrific clients. The description provided by the Harry Walker Agency, which books speaking engagements for Mrs. Lieberman, was no more informative: "Today, Mrs. Lieberman is Senior Counsel for Hill & Knowlton's health care and pharmaceuticals practice, where she addresses the constantly changing dynamics of today's global health care market."

…

Connecticut voters may never know what Mrs. Lieberman did or didn't do for Pfizer, APCO, Hill & Knowlton or any of the other companies to which she has lent her skills and connections over the years. The Lieberman campaign repeatedly refused to disclose the names of her Hill & Knowlton clients to Kevin Rennie of the Hartford Courant. Voters should know what Joe Lieberman has done for the drug industry, however, and why his wife's simultaneous financial and professional involvement in that industry is troubling.

The real question here is not whether Mrs. Lieberman was technically required to register as a lobbyist, but whether she was being paid by corporate clients whose special interests were being served by her husband.