Furious Seasons

May 10, 2007

05-10-2007 Media Madness

Several bloggers picked up on today's New York Times piece on pharma 'ho docs in Minnesota dosing kids on atypicals. CL Psych has a smart, lengthy analysis of the article. Stir Crazy reports that a mom quoted in the article touting Seroquel for her teen son is actually a NAMI Minnesota "Parent Organizer and pushes their pro-medication agenda at local schools where she has even given workshops on how to 'recognize the signs and symtoms of mental illness in pre-school children' and and even state mental health committee hearings."

If the Times' reporters knew this woman worked for NAMI, then omitting that fact from their article is withholding information from readers. Anyone working for NAMI (and that generally means a 50 percent chance that some of their salary or programs are funded by a pharma company) is hardly an objective voice and their inherent subjectivity should be duly noted.

Makers of OxyContin settle with feds for $634 million in a case involving allegations of downplaying risks of the drugs in statements the company made to doctors and regulators. Any implications for Eli Lilly's Zyprexa in this? Any reason we should trust pharma to DTC market its drugs than DTP market them? Pharmalot has a great analysis.

Meanwhile, the Senate totally screwed up its new drug safety bill by dropping, late in the game, a provision that would've slapped sensible limits on DTC marketing of prescription drugs. I personally think DTC marketing should be banned. It's been 10 years and it's a failed paradigm for health care delivery. Brandweek NRx has more. The FDA though will apparently have more safety watchdogs on drugs. Want to bet they get moved over to food investigations?

An AP article on the ineffectiveness of off-label marketing rules in preventing said off-label marketing. As with environmental regulations, little enforcement and small fines do nothing to deter corporate misbehavior. I wonder why.

Soulful Sepulcher has a very interesting take on mental health advocacy. The natives are getting restless.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at May 10, 2007 11:33 AM

del.icio.us Digg it reddit

Comments

I am glad you too want to ban DTC marketing. I called on my blog for people to tell John Mack and Chris Truelove, their views, since they both were kind enough to offer to hear the "opposition" to the current trend in DTC PHARMA marketing.

Alas, not one person, except for my husband, responded. I asked everyone. Since we have the ear of the marketers, I hope that you, since I respect your opinions SO much, would weigh in.

But, alas, I think my symptoms has made my message blurry. So, I need to get better and then try again. I can't even get to 100 of L, like you want to get down to.. I feel like my mind is under water.

Cheers.

PS. If you want to toss this comment I won't be offended.

Posted by: Dr. Black Kitty at May 10, 2007 12:29 PM

NAMI-MN's own newsletter the Advocate links the Family-to-Family program that Ms. Sheele heads for Dakota directly linked with "grants" from Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Check for yourself, they are on NAMI-MN's website.

(this is from Jan 07 (says 2006 in file, but really 2007), but I'm sure there are more current ones) on page 6 list "Grants Keep NAMI Growing"

http://nami.beardog.net/AdvHTML_Upload/Jan-Feb2006AdvocateNewsletter.pdf

VISIONARY ($5,000-$9,999)

• Eli Lilly and Company – to reprint
Hope for Recovery booklets and to support
Family-to-Family education.

From May 2007

http://nami.beardog.net/AdvHTML_Upload/May2007ADVOCATE.pdf

IRIS CIRCLE ($10,000 +)

• Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka
America Pharmaceutical, Inc. – for the
Family-to-Family program; and to help
sponsor NAMI-MN’s Spring Gala.

Posted by: christin at May 10, 2007 01:11 PM

Senate definitely dropped the ball on that half assed bill.

Posted by: zipzip at May 10, 2007 08:57 PM