FDA Takes End Run to Award Contract to PR Firm

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees the FDA, said his panel also would investigate the contract.

"The agency chose to use its limited resources to save face instead of saving the public health," said Dingell, whose committee has led the oversight of the FDA. "This sham of a contract calls into question the integrity of federal contracts awarded to small businesses and Alaska Native corporations."

The FDA has struggled for years to fulfill its consumer safety mandates, including repeatedly failing to identify the produce responsible for salmonella outbreaks. Lawmakers have held more than a dozen hearings on FDA operations since 2006 and two congressmen alleged that the "mismanagement of its resources has been staggering."

One FDA response was to ask for more money from Congress -- $275 million. Another was to launch a public relations campaign to "inform the American public about the good work that FDA is doing for them."

Tasked with the public relations job was Mildred Cooper, a temporary FDA consultant hired on a two-year contract to advise FDA Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach and other officials. Hired in March, Cooper became an FDA civil servant.

Cooper, who had worked on Capitol Hill and in public affairs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Defense Department, called a friend at Qorvis, which specializes in corporate communications.

Before she joined the FDA, Cooper had worked with Qorvis as a public affairs executive at Luna Innovations, a company that sells medical devices and other products and whose clients include the Defense Department.

"I had experience with Qorvis," she said in an interview. "We thought they could help with our communications effort. . . . It was a matter of efficiency."

She was referred to Don Goldberg, who helps lead Qorvis's crisis communications practice and had once served as part of President Clinton's crisis management team.

Goldberg told The Post in an interview that he and Cooper talked about improving the FDA's image. He thought the job could lead to more work with the FDA and enhance the firm's credibility in the health-care industry; Qorvis also represents PhRMA, the drugmakers trade group.

He and Cooper also discussed speechwriting and media training for von Eschenbach and other agency leaders.

"My impression was she was working closely with the commissioner and chief of staff," Goldberg said. "My recollection was they wanted to hire Qorvis. It was not appropriate to hire Qorvis directly."