Drugmakers script social media to push meds

[cal04]

An outgunned FDA tries to get tough as pharmaceutical companies get creative
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38980515/ns/health-health_care/

(snip)
In February 2009, a popular New York blogger attended a brunch with fellow "frazzled moms." They took in tips from a style expert and listened to a nurse extol the virtues of Mirena, a birth control device sold by Bayer Healthcare.

The nurse was on Bayer's payroll. In a series of events organized with the help of a women's website, Mom Central, the pharmaceutical company gathered a captive audience of young mothers. It provided the nurse with a script and had the women fill out a survey before they left.

The sessions earned a stern rebuke from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In a letter to Bayer Healthcare made public earlier this year, the agency faulted the drugmaker for telling "busy moms" that using its intrauterine device (IUD) "will result in increased levels of intimacy, romance and, by implication, emotional satisfaction."

Besides hyping the product, the nurse failed to disclose potential risks. "Here you have a company hiring a third-party to invite people into a home like a Tupperware party," said Thomas Abrams, whose department oversees pharmaceutical marketing reviews at the FDA. "That was extremely, extremely concerning to us because this product has risks — risk of infection, loss of fertility. Huge risk."

[HillbillyBob]

1. They are really good at hiding the risks, and that is so wrong.

I take a lot of meds and some of them in the past have cause me a bunch of problems some life threatening and requiring trips to the ER.

[MedicalAdmin]

2. Is anyone surprised by this?

I know I'm not.

Our medical practice markets the same way with our community education series. The difference is that we are not beholden to any company or product and we NEVER promote any product or sales during our presentations. The presentation are strickly on specific health topics and talk about what works.

I think that a the fact that the FDA is sending "stern" letters instead of breaking heads and seizing bank accounts is a large part of the problem. It is like a parent just saying over an over "now junior, pretty please pick up your mess. Pretty please with sugar on top." and then picking up the mess themselves. The kid never learns and growns into a spoiled brat.

Drug companies need to be spanked with a sharp ax.

[undergroundpanther]

3. It Gets much worse...

My old post taken from google Cache...

Precision Buzz Marketing..on psych wards..
Posted by undergroundpanther in General Discussion
Mon Mar 03rd 2008, 01:26 AM
Some of the new psych drugs scare the fuck out of me. The Marketing methods SICKEN me..The testing required on these shiny new drugs is practically a joke..But it's not funny at all..


And yes, I too, was given a sales pitch for fucking invega .For I was in a psych ward...There, much to my shocked revulsion, things had changed in the 15 years since I was in one the last time..The hospital staff was actually promoting big pharma's nasty pills in the guise of "mental health education". And apparently this has been going on for a while.. Please pass me a barf bag..And I bet that bag will be advertising some happy pills on it too.

http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2007/...

The staff member giving us the pitch was a licensed clinical social worker.. "teaching" this "class" on "mental health education". He was open about how he meets with the pharma reps from time to time,and he told us how they buy him a nice dinner and tell him about new drugs and he gets all their perks .
After he meets with these slime balls in suits,he comes into the ward and "teaches" the patients , some manic, depressed, suicidal, hearing voices, all are generally are suffering, and all are captive audiences required to "go to groups" and scheduled activities because that is the so called "therapy" part of being stuck in the hospital.And for"therapy" we hear about all the "wonderful,safe, and effective, almost effortless "new" drugs.
WTF??!!

As he sweet talked us up with promises of happiness that can only be had in a capsule a day..I smelt a LOT of bullshit.And yes he calls the drugs by brand NAME, repeating it louder,just like a trained seal,performing and appearing to believe in the sales pitches as TRUTH from pharma reps as if it is actually unbiased information. I sat there dumbfounded by all this.

After this vomitile sales pitch I witnessed..Suddenly several other patients announced in this "education group" they wanted to be put on that drug..what was it?? vega? Inveg,?? ASAP.


In the book "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell -- who is an author well-read by the pharmaceutical industry -- the author talks of the tipping point as the "moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point" when an idea, fashion, or product takes off.

First, you have to identify the equivalent to "high prescribers" among patients. These people would fit Gladwell's profile of Mavens: their motivation is to educate and help.

....focus on the true customers among consumers -- the patients who are taking the drugs..
http://pharmamkting.blogspot.com/2006/08/p...

Fuck THE damn Marketers Arrgh!.



Disturbingly,I observed no questions arose from any of the patients about potential drug interactions, toxicity, nasty side effects, how it works, what is it made of, how it was tested, or anything like that. Nor was it brought up by our"teacher"/staff/sales rep. They wanted to TRY it. It bothered me how the other patients were so easily convinced it was obvious in order to get better means one has to be eager to ingest all the little poison pills the"professionals" recommend at the appointed times .. FOREVER .. And he pitched it all to us like that fucking pill was THE solution to every emotional problem..What I saw was a particularly sickening kind of predatory marketing trend to ever trust anything that is called "mental health education" as ANYTHING but Marketing Propaganda..




It just got me so inwardly sad, pissed off and disgusted..I also wondered how many more psych hospital staff out there are now being wined and dined into being degreed drug pushers for the pharmaceutical companies?
So now it is the psych staff working in the wards,being smarmy salesmen,and if NAMI'S cozy drug rep relations wasn't bad enough for psych survivors , NAMI as "consumer advocates" my ass....Ugh!......It's all so absolutely disgusting.

Is that all psych hospitalization is good for now?.. marketing, as if it was therapeutic to be manipulated into taking even MORE drugs in psych wards than you already take?? Is this what medicaid money is paying for? Fuck this shit.

How disgusting can it be,??? Find out..
http://nurse-ratcheds.blogspot.com/2008/01...
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=33951
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/05/trea...

I am serious as a heart attack..Some of these "wonderful drugs" are fucking dangerous.Take them if it helps you, but dammit BE AWARE of what ALL the RISKS are!!! Do NOT just TRUST the "professionals" or "helpful staff" as if they have your interest at heart because they may have been targeted and already bought into the "buzz".
http://ww1.prweb.com/releases/2007/3/prweb...
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/05/1... /
.......

I haven't written about my fun day I had with an Invega drug rep sales guy. I was in the psychiatrist's waiting room, and there he was, all shiny in his suit, his badge on and his big ass suitcase full of Pharma freebies. I walk in and stop in my tracks. Oh, a Pharma rep, right here in person I look into the counter area and see he has already handed over enormous latte'style coffee mugs that are bright orange with INVEGA on it. Loaded like candy inside were lovely Invega samples. Damn it looked good, like a party favor, or a teacher's gift resembling one's I've received, only those were filled with Hershey kisses.Not Invega, the dollar store version of Risperdal.
http://bipolarsoupkitchen-stephany.blogspo...

Janssen’s marketing team apparently missed the fact that the word in the English language that sounds most like “Invega” is “inveigle,” meaning “to entice, lure, or ensnare by flattery or artful talk or inducements”
http://www.thecarlatreport.com/index.asp?p...

The FDA is useless..Is there nothing that can stop these predatory, manipulative,lying,corporate marketing pieces of shit??
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/01/washingt...
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2007...

[ThomCat]

4. +1

Advertising agencies now have so many damned specialty agencies that are experts in every possible way of marketing these drugs.

They run the education classes that doctors have to take periodically to stay current. Not med schools. So you think your doctor is getting unbiased medical information to remain current on what is happening in his/her field? Think again. Your doctor takes classes that are nothing more than Big Pharma sponsored sales sessions.

Advertising agencies now own the companies that create and provide many medical texts and diagrams and charts and other print aides, so that they can they can include advertising in them, or they can include advertising with them when doctors order them.

As medical reimbursement rates from dropped, especially from medicaid, but also from medicare and from many commercial insurance programs, doctors are getting more and more of their income directly from the pharmaceutical companies. They can get get paid to put their names on studies even if they didn't do the studies, because that makes the studies look more legitimate. People at the ad agencies often write and perform the research and hold onto the data. They just need doctors to sign off on it so it looks legitimate.

There can be speaker fees that are really just bonuses for prescribing a drug to so many patients.

Big Pharma has lots of ways of making sure doctors are well paid, just as long as the doctors make sure that Big Pharma benefits and drugs keep getting approved and prescribed in ever growing amounts. And it always has to be the newest version of a drug, not the older version that might not still be under patent anymore. That way the drug company always makes the most money.

Having clients in the insurance industry who directly supporting big-pharma was a big eye-opener. :(