Political cartoonists have long characterized Washington politicians as puppets of special interests, but the recent revelation about the influence of lobbyists for Genentech during the health care debate demonstrates the joke can be all too real. Genentech is a subsidiary of the Swiss drug company Roche. According to a story by The New York Times, Genentech claimed that 42 members of the House of Representatives made speeches using talking points provided by their lobbyists. Genentech sent one version of the remarks to Democrats and another to Republicans. Their quest for bipartisanship was successful, with 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats relying on speech material from advocates for the biotech giant. The lobbyists’ remarks were not only uttered on the House floor, but more than a dozen of them also had them inserted in the Congressional Record.

In one particularly extreme example of using Genentech talking points, Representatives Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and Joe Wilson of South Carolina both used this section from the statement prepared for Republicans: “One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country. Unfortunately, many of the largest companies that would seek to enter the biosimilar market have made their money by outsourcing their research to foreign countries like India.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky