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Public Citizen Health Research Group today released a letter to US Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thomson (whose work as Governer of Wisconsin inspired 1996’s federal welfare reform, which is in the process of being re-authorized, with a little more screw tightening, by Congress). The letter urges Secretary Thomson to pursue criminal charges against Abbot Laboratories, a drug company that broke the law winning approval for a shady obesity drug Public Citizen links to dozens of deaths.

So I read this, and I figure I’ll toss my voice into the multitude like a good citizen and send off an e-mail to the Secretary. Only, get this, he’s one of the top officials in our government and he doesn’t have an e-mail address. Now I can understand if the Secretary is too busy to read every last e-mail anyone in these United States sends off… but at least have an inbox and some interns to sort through it. I mean, come on, it’s the 21st century, get with the program. This kinda thing wouldn’t happen under a President who invented the internet.

The most obnoxious part of this whole story is how difficult it was to find the man’s inadequate contact information. If I were making the web page for the Department of Health and Human Services, the Secretary’s e-mail address would be on the top page (because I’m cool like that). But it’s not that simple. First I had to look within the page for the Office of the Secretary. And then I had to look for the Immediate Office of the Secretary. And then, at a fourth nested layer, the Immediate Office. The Immediate Office of the Immediate Office of the Secretary of the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Even if you don’t care about lying, greedy drug companies letting people die, send somebody a strongly worded letter about the run around.

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