Some "Sunshine" -- Upon The Schering-Plough Corporation for Better Government Fund -- An FEC-Registered PAC

The reason I am posting this now, is that the-below data will become relevant in a little while, to another story to be featured here, so I wanted to post these totals, now, well in advance, direct from the FEC.gov webpage for the above-referenced Political Action Committee -- [of the total amounts listed, and during the period, below, some $123,000 was contributed by Fred Hassan, as CEO of Schering (or Pharmacia, and thus, Pharmacia-related PACs) -- you'll need to type his last and first name into the linked form, to get those totals]:

Between 2000 and March 2008, the above PAC (which is declared to be a non-party-affiliated PAC) contributed over $175,000 to the National (and New Jersey) Republican Senate and Congressional Committees. During this same period, the above PAC contributed a little over $16,000 to similar Democratic Senate and Congressional Committees.

So, the money went about 11 to 1, in favor of Republican Committees -- and on the National Committee-arms level, from 2000 to 2008 (thus far), it went about 17 to 1 Republican (The PAC gave equally, -- $5,000 to each of the New Jersey Democratic, and Republican, committees).

In addition, the-above PAC gave $12,000 to the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America Better Government Committee, as well.

To be clear, for the moment, I have ignored contributions, both for and against, individual candidates and campaigns, here -- though it looks to me, on a preliminary basis, that the figures skew slightly toward the Republican side of most individual races and tickets.

And that is not at all surprising, in and of itself.

I promise this will become important, later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

UPDATED: 05.09.08 PM -- As will this -- At the House Sub-Committee Hearing on Direct to Consumer (DTC) Advertising, held Thursday, May 8, 2008, all the pharmaceutical industry "friendly" questions -- and outright defenses -- of Pharma's DTC advertising -- came from one or more of these House Republicans:

Rep. Whitfield (R-KY), who gets significant PAC money (per FEC.gov website) from Abbott, Smith Kline Beecham, Merck, Novartis and Lilly, among others.

Rep. Burgess (R-TX), who gets significant PAC money (per FEC.gov website) from Amgen, HCA, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Medimmune, Novartis, Roche and Schering-Plough, among others.

Rep. Ferguson (R-NJ), who gets significant PAC money (per FEC.gov website) from Bristol Meyer Squibb, Becton Dickinson, CR Bard, Merck and Johnson & Johnson, among others.

Rep. Barton (R-TX), who gets significant PAC money (per FEC.gov website) from Bayer, among others.

Rep. Shimkus (R-IL), who gets significant PAC money (per FEC.gov website) from Merck, Pfizer, Smith-Kline-Beecham, Novartis and others.

Gee -- that's interesting, no?