Dan Burton: “because of the Enron debacle and the other corporations around the country that padded the books that made it look like…”

“because of the Enron debacle and the other corporations around the country that padded the books that made it look like they were making profits when actually they were losing money, and at the same time corporate executives were making tons, because of that, the Oxley bill that you talked about a few minutes ago set certain guidelines and standards that they had to meet. I do not know why we couldn't propose some kind of legislation that would mandate the same kind of standard be applied to the pharmaceutical industry as well as other corporations around this country. The other thing that I think we ought to take a hard look at is when Congress, you and I, when we leave here, we cannot lobby our colleagues for a year. The reason we cannot is because there is a concern that there might be collusion between an incumbent congressman and some corporation where they are going to benefit from the judgment and the vote of a congressman in exchange for him lobbying down the road. So we make sure that a congressman has to wait a year before he can lobby his fellow Members. Why cannot we do the same thing with the FDA and HHS and CDC? Why can we not stop this revolving door policy that exists by saying, if you are working for a health agency here in the United States of America, you cannot work for a pharmaceutical company where you were sitting in judgment on their products or on their policies?”