Pharmaceutical Association Pays Novelist To Write Horror Story About Impor

[applegrove]

Pharmaceutical Association Pays Novelist To Write Horror Story About Importing Drugs From Canada...

"The Los Angeles Times | Michael Hiltzik: | Posted October 27, 2005 09:31 AM

Business, like politics, sometimes makes strange bedfellows. But more often than not, the couples it brings together are perfectly matched.

That seemed to be the case when the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, hooked up with Michael Viner.

...According to the proposal, PhRMA would pay Phoenix a six-figure sum for the marketing and production of a written-to-order fictional thriller. The plotline was what Hollywood would term high-concept — a group of shadowy terrorists conspires to murder thousands of Americans by poisoning the medicine they're importing from Canada to beat U.S. drug prices. (Think "True Lies" meets the Physicians Desk Reference.)


..... Snip "

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden27oct27,1,784104.column?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

[tk2kewl]

1. Oh brother

:eyes:

[Skinner]

2. LOL

That is fucking hilarious!

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Why not Michael Crichton? He's willing to whore himself for this crap.

:puke:

[IChing]

4. But those evil Canadians have been plotting for years to take over Fla.

Nothing like crass propaganda.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. I hope that National Lampoon makes the movie. Too bad John Candy is no

longer with us to star in it.

[Julius Civitatus]

10. I thought of it. -- I wonder who paid for Crichton's latest novel

Exxon? Texaco? Mobil Oil?

[Bob3]

6. you've got to be kidding me.

on someone on drugs would think this would have any effect on public opinion. Oh wait a minute this is the Pharmaceutical industry.
Still I don't expect this book to see the light of day

1)Propaganda like this doesn't work if people know it was bought and paid for by a huge business group. Which we now know
2)given all the recent drug recalls, the exposure of sloppy research and the cover ups of side effect of American drugs - most people are worried about getting poisoned by drugs made by Americans - Canada has higher standards than we do when it comes to drug safety.

[IChing]

7. You mean that they(fascist corportatist) would conspire to use propaganda

By paying someone 6 figures to produce a fictional report such as "no child left behind", fake Judas Miller reports to promote an illegal war or a novel to influence the masses?

I am shocked, that this sounds like a fascist conspirators plot in itself

. Wait, they would never do anything like this would they?

Shocked I say, shocked.

[sarcasmo]

8. Profit through FEAR. The new way pharmaceutical companies do business.

Create a fear, let's say bird flu. Sell boatloads of your flu drug tamiflu. Watch your profits and your stock price skyrocket, sound familiar?
Next write a book about how Canadian drugs will kill you thanks to the TERRA. Once people are afraid to buy drugs from Canada watch pharmaceutical companies profits skyrocket.
Corporations are destroying this country to the core.

[applegrove]

9. The corporations themselves are terribly frightened. That is the danger.

They walk around like wounded animals and try and buy their way into power - knowing that if they make it to "monopoly power" they will be so big they will live forever. If they don't make mega-size & mega-dominance - then they will be taken over or become very small. That is what opening the doors to de-regulation does.

The laws of the jungle.

Plus the have exactly one business cycle for the CEO to make a killing - so outsourcing, killing off any opposition or 'strength' in their enemies is alway up at the top of the agenda. If he fails in one business cycle - he is out and his family will then not be rich enough to be a monopoly power (so rich they never have to worry about being in the masses again). No long term thinking and love to pass on a better life to their kids - cause corporations never feel (emotion they believe is wasted on humans when it is not being used as a marketing tool to sell something to a human) and they never die if they get monopoly sized.

MBAs are taught now - that their enemies are not just their competitors but their workers, government (regulations), people who buy their products, etc. Everyone except huge companies just like them are the enemies.

When Animals Attack....

[salin]

11. terrorist plot to kill american senior citizens?

can it get more odd? Sell books to try to reshape public sentiment? Oh - guess there was so much sucess with the whole Left Behind series ...

Odd times we live in.

[KoKo]

12. Looking at wall to wall coverage and hype about "Asian Bird Flu"

this doesn't surprise me. Hype and Lies...that's all these people running our companies know these days. All the big bucks in the CEO's pockets and they can control the industry associations and hire the ad agencies and PR folks to do dirty work for them.

Disgusting....

[gatorboy]

13. You know, I'm kinda disappointed they let this out of the bag early.

I would've been interested to see the promotional push for this.
How much money would've been spent to sell this?

And considering the problems reporters are facing with the Plame scandal, I would've also been curious to see which book reviewers gave this book high grade critiques...