Virginia Buckingham, an op-ed columnist with The Boston Herald, a former head of the Massachusetts Port Authority and a blogger whose site lends courage to the pharmaceutical industry, is joining the drugmaker as assistant director for government relations. She’s giving up her column to take the job.

Ginny’s career includes stints as chief of staff for former Massachusetts Govs. William Weld and Paul Cellucci from 1997 to 1999. And from September 1999 to November 2001, she was the head of the Massachusetts Port Authority. And She served as deputy editorial page editor of the Herald, Boston’s fun-filled tabloid, from January 2003 to July 2005 when she began writing a regular column, which focused mainly on state and national politics.

Until recently, Ginny also managed the content of Rx Daily Dose, a blog that may be familiar to some of you. This is how the blog describes itself: “On a daily basis, RxDailyDose will correct the record, expose the biases and clarify the cost to patients of misguided policies, off-base attacks and hypocritical politicians targeting an industry whose constant discovery of new and better medicines has improved health and extended lives.”

Not sure if the blog exists anymore. But it was begun as a project of the Institute For Liberty, a conservative group. The organization’s president, Jason Wright, was previously a vp at Frontiers of Freedom Institute, another conservative group that was founded by Malcolm Wallop, a former republican senator from Wyoming. His group receives backing from oil and tobacco companies, according to SourceWatch.

Here’s a link to the RxDailyDose

Buckingham’s last column in today’s Herald (no mention of Pfizer).
[tags]Lobbying, Pfizer, Virginia Buckingham[/tags]