The Washington Post’s Robert O’Harrow gives us a cut-and-dried tale of corruption — highly ironic corruption — at the Food and Drug Administration.

As Understanding Government has detailed, lawmakers have held hearings and newspapers have run stories screaming that the FDA wasn’t doing its job. The (accurate) accusations ranged from not being able to handle Chinese imports to being too cozy with drug companies.

So the FDA handled the negative publicity by spending $300,000 to hire a public relations firm. Only they violated federal procurement rules by making it a no-bid contract. The agency gave the contract to Alaska Newspapers, Inc. — whose special privileges as an Alaskan Native company apparently overrides no-bid rules. The Alaskan company then immediately gave all the work to a sub-contractor, the D.C. p.r. firm Qorvis (yes, no "u"– that should have been a sign).

Mildred Cooper, who the FDA hired to run p.r., previously worked for Qorvis. Also, Qorvis represents the drug company trade group, PhRMA.

O’Harrow got his info from agency emails. The FDA has since dropped the contract and opened an internal probe. Hopefully it will be better-conducted than their food and drug inspections!-MB

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