Lobby funded novel, author says

He said the group wanted to scare Americans into opposing imported drugs.
TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL
WASHINGTON -- It's a story sure to send a chill down the spine of the average American.
A dastardly group of Balkan terrorists launches an attack on the United States by poisoning low-cost prescription drugs from Canada bought over the Internet by unsuspecting U.S. consumers.
Book ideas like this cross the desks of publishers every day, but "The Karasik Conspiracy" is a special case.
The novel, due to appear in December, received funding from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, one of the most powerful lobbies in the United States, as the result of actions, it says, of a "rogue" employee.
According to one of the book's co-authors, Kenin Spivak, the goal was simply "to scare Americans into opposing the importation of low-cost prescriptions from Canada.
He said that the book's publisher, Phoenix Books, was paid an unspecified amount of money to publish the novel by the drug group, which also said it planned to buy 40,000 copies.
"They paid for the writing of the book," Spivak said in an interview from Los Angeles.
PhRMA denies claims
The pharmaceutical group denies its "leadership" approved the book project, but it admits that "a rogue employee" did arrange to make payments through a consultant for the book project before it was discovered last summer and halted, according to PhRMA's senior vice-president of communications, Ken Johnson.
"We absolutely and positively did not commission the book," he said. "We are open and transparent about everything we did."
"We have credible safety-based arguments to support our position on reimportation," he said. "We don't have to resort to pulp fiction."
Last year, Americans bought an estimated $800 million worth of drugs from Canada, a practice big pharmaceutical companies are working to stop, to protect their profitable U.S. sales. They have lobbied Congress and launched ad campaigns aimed at convincing Americans that drugs they order from Canada are potentially unsafe.
Several measures allowing drug imports from Canada and elsewhere have been introduced in Congress but have not been passed.
Story development
The story of "The Karasik Conspiracy" began last spring.
According to Spivak, a lawyer who said he was acting as a consultant approached PhRMA and then approached Phoenix Books with the book idea. The idea was presented to a representative Spivak believed was representing PhRMA, who approved it.
"Final approval of the book's content was with PhRMA. They would not have to publish the book if they didn't like it," Spivak said. Under the arrangement, the group's payments to the publisher were supposed to remain secret.
Michael Viner, president of Phoenix Books, was not available for comment.
Author and ghostwriter Julie Chrystyn was hired to write the book. Spivak, a telecommunications executive, signed on later and Jayson Blair, the reporter fired by The New York Times for fabricating news articles, was hired by Phoenix Books as an editor.