In 1969, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Herbert Ley offered New Orleans anesthesiologist John Adriani, MD, the role of director of the Bureau of Medicine. Dr Adriani accepted the offer, but it was quickly withdrawn, in part based on pressure from the pharmaceutical industry. It opposed Dr Adriani's appointment because of his work promoting generic drugs. This episode was the subject of a 1969 cartoon in the Hartford Times by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ed Valtman.