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PhRMA's latest fiction

If I made stuff up like this, no one would believe me:

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) recently commissioned a novel that purported to scare people out of getting their drugs from Canada.... but, wait, it gets better. The author assigned to write the book, Julie Chrystyn,  turned in a draft that didn't suit the suits:

Her story concerned a Croatian terrorist cell that uses Canadian Web sites to murder millions of unwitting Americans looking for cut-rate pharmaceuticals.

So PhRMA commissioned a co-author, Kenin Spivak, who told the Daily News that "they wanted it somewhat dumbed down for women, with a lot more fluff in it." (Women are the main consumers of Canadian drugs.)

"They also wanted to change the motivating factor of the terrorists to greed, because they didn't want it to be politics," Spivak said. "They wanted lots of people to die."

...and so the deal eventually broke down. Now, whether that's because the authors didn't kill enough consumers is something we can only speculate. All we know is that PhRMA pulled out and offered the writers $100,000 to go away. The writers, however, declined, and so we have The Karasik Conspiracy to look forward to next year.