Barbara T. Dreyfuss spent 20 years on Wall Street as a senior vice president and analyst for Prudential Securities, writing and speaking about government policy concerning health insurers, HMOs, Medicare, the Food and Drug Administration, and the hospital, drug and medical device industries. Her audience was the firm's clients, including large institutional investors such as mutual funds, pension funds and hedge funds. Her office,which covered policy making in Washington, D.C., consistently won top honors in Institutional Investor magazine's investor surveys. After leaving Prudential in 2004, she became an independent investigative reporter, writing about such topics as the lobbying influence of drug makers and insurance companies, Agent Orange, PTSD and the controversy over privatizing Social Security. She was a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and contributed to Mother Jones, Washington Monthly and The Veteran.