WASHINGTON, DC – Horace Cooper will join The Heartland Institute to head its Washington, DC-based Free To Choose Medicine Project. Cooper will work to educate the public, advocacy groups, and congressional staff about an innovative proposal to empower individuals, advised by their doctors, to make informed decisions about the use of new drugs being evaluated on the FDA’s clinical trial track and to have access to such drugs sooner via a parallel, “free to choose” track.
Cooper’s project will draw on the ideas of Heartland Policy Advisor Bart Madden, whose 2010 book Free To Choose Medicine (www.freetochoosemedicine.com) outlines the case for a dual-track drug approval system. “Horace has the ideal background to manage an educational process about institutional change that ultimately will bring substantial benefits to patients in need of faster access to the most promising new drugs,” said Madden.
Cooper comes to Heartland after a long career in Washington. A prominent legal commentator and formerly director of the Institute for Liberty’s Center for Law and Regulation since 2007, he was a visiting assistant professor of law at George Mason University School of Law from May 2005 to May 2007. While at GMUSL his research focus was on U.S. intellectual property rights policy, the role of the United States Supreme Court in the American constitutional system, political forecasting, the legislative process, and federal labor law.
Cooper has served in senior capacities in the George W. Bush administration, including stints as chief of staff at the Voice of America and the Department of Labor’s Employment Standards Administration. Prior to that, he served as counsel to the Honorable Richard K. Armey, Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives from 1994 to 2002.
“This is an exciting project and I’m looking forward to being a part of this innovative effort to assist patients and their families,” said Cooper.
Cooper can be reached at [email protected] or 202-525-5717.
