The FDA hires a PR firm, creates a public relations nightmare for itself

by Kristi Park, October 3rd, 2008, 7:00 am

You’ve almost got to feel sorry for the FDA. After several public relations embarrassments — tainted heparin from China and salmonella in the tomato supply, not to mention years’ worth of Congressional frustration over its stewardship of government funds — the agency hired a PR company to improve its image. And now, perhaps fittingly, it’s in trouble yet again for the way it went about choosing that firm.

The Washington Post reports that the FDA may have violated government contracting rules by not holding a bidding competition for a $300,000 contract hiring a firm to create “a lasting positive public image for the agency.” Instead it used a convoluted deal with an Alaska Native corporation called Alaska Newspapers, which agreed to funnel all the work to the FDA’s agency of choice, Qorvis Communications. Why an Alaska Native corporation, you ask? Because such businesses are exempt from regulations requiring them to bid on federal work. And why Qorvis Communications? Apparently because the FDA’s new PR head, Mildred Cooper, had connections to the firm and wanted to use it.

Representative John Dingell (D-Mich.), the chairman of the House committee that provides FDA oversight, was quoted in the Post article as vowing to investigate the matter. But he may already have started back in April, when he and another House member (Bart Stupak, also a Michigan Democrat) queried the FDA commissioner about any dealings the agency had had with public relations firms, specifically with Qorvis Communications. At the time, Don Goldberg, Qorvis’ crisis communications practice head, indicated that the company hadn’t done any work for the FDA and that any negotiations between Qorvis and the FDA were in the preliminary stages. But the timeline presented in the Post article, using emails sent principally between Goldberg and Cooper, seem to indicate that the general outlines of a deal were in place by early 2008, with an official purchase order being issued (to Alaska Newspapers, of course) in July.

The FDA cancelled the contract upon learning of the Washington Post’s findings, and Cooper denies doing anything intentionally improper. Whether or not that’s the case, the FDA has most likely added to its public image problems, leaving it in dire need of — you guessed it — a good PR firm.