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FOX News Whistle blowers. UNBELIEVABLE!!! Click on this link to see this story.
Friday, March 28, 2008
FOX News Whistle blowers. UNBELIEVABLE!!!
Don't believe what you see: Pfizer gets its hand slapped for false advertising
Don't believe everything you see on television. That's especially true if it's in a TV advertisement. And it's even more especially true if it's in a TV advertisement for a drug from a major pharmaceutical company. Of course, that's the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from me. But in a rare moment of clarity and common sense, it's something that Congress is saying, too.
Recently, Pfizer pulled a long-running TV campaign for their anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor after a Congressional committee had questioned if the ad misrepresented the credentials of the campaign's spokesman Dr. Robert Jarvik. Though Jarvik does indeed have a medical degree, he is neither a cardiologist, nor is he licensed to practice medicine, though this is not clearly stated in the commercial. There are even ads in the campaign in which it appears that Jarvik is rowing a scull, but this is, in fact, a body double because Jarvik does not row.
If you've seen the ads – and surely you have at some point, since Pfizer has spent a staggering $258 million on their Lipitor advertising campaign – you'll know that it's quite easy to draw the conclusion that Jarvik is endorsing Lipitor based on his experience as a heart specialist. Which, of course, he is in a manner of speaking – the man helped to design an artificial heart. But he's not the kind of heart specialist that's qualified to speak about heart health the way a cardiologist is … Jarvik is a medical engineer.
Of course, this is exactly the kind of subtle distinction that Pfizer was most likely hoping would be lost on the public. Not that they're willing to admit that. In a public statement on the issue, Pfizer's president of worldwide pharmaceutical operations Ian Read said, "The way in which we presented Dr. Jarvik in these ads has, unfortunately, led to misimpressions and distractions from our primary goal of encouraging patient and physician dialogue on the leading cause of death in the world – cardiovascular disease."
See how he spun that? After hearing that, you've just got to think, "Hey, they didn't mean it! They're just trying to get the word out about something bad." But don't you believe it. Because high cholesterol is such a huge focus, there are several cholesterol-lowering medications on the market, of which Pfizer's Lipitor is just one. So it's likely that marketing folks at Pfizer were well aware of their delicate egg-dance along the fine line of the whole truth.
Ads don't just happen overnight, least of all pharmaceutical ads. There are months of planning in close association with an advertising agency. Several ideas are tested by putting them in focus groups and other forms of testing to see what messaging is the most motivating to prospective buyers. So Lipitor is marketed in the exact same way as cat food, toilet paper, and soda.
Why the agony? Because even though Lipitor is a patented drug that produced $12.7 billion (no, that's not a typo – BILLION. With a "B") for Pfizer last year, that patent expires in 2010. And at that point, every drug company will be allowed to produce and market the drug. So Pfizer is looking to squeeze as much cash out of their exclusivity on the product while they can. In addition, they're also battling against a loss in market share to a generic (and therefore cheaper) version of Lipitor called Zocor, not to mention other anti-cholesterol drugs of different formulations that are being sold by other pharmaceutical manufacturers.
It's just like the Cola Wars between Coke and Pepsi. Except with your health in the balance.
So there's a certain insincerity to Pfizer's "who, me?" attitude in the wake of being called out by Congress on their almost, kinda true ad campaign. Certainly, Dr. Jarvik's dialogue in the spot was written and re-written by the ad agency with the complete knowledge that it had to stop short of having Jarvik claim to be a practicing doctor who is endorsing Lipitor. But the fact that this is what most viewers would certainly infer from the ad's presentation was, trust me, all fine and dandy with Pfizer. In fact, I'm positive that was the goal of the ad, which was created for Pfizer by New York ad agency the Kaplan Thayler Group.
And allow me to take my cynicism yet another step farther: I'll bet dollars to big, sugar-covered, fat-filled donuts that these allegedly accidental misrepresentations in the Jarvik ad were brought to the attention of Congress by lobbyists from the other Big Pharma agencies who are in direct competition with Pfizer for a slice of the multi-billion-dollar anti-cholesterol pie. Remember: those other Big Pharma companies have their own congressmen who they've "supported" by pumping cash into campaign war chests. So when they want something done, it's just a matter of picking up the phone.
Pfizer's pulling of the Jarvik ads isn't the end of the investigation. While the congressmen in charge of the investigation are pleased that Pfizer "did the right thing" by pulling the ads, the circus is just getting started. Even Jarvik's identification as "inventor of the artificial heart" is being called into question, so this could get pretty interesting.
As for me, I find it heartening that, regardless of the motive, someone is at least starting to reign in Big Pharma's marketing arm, and hold it up for closer inspection. But knowing that companies like Pfizer are never strapped for cash, it's probably just a matter of greasing the right palms to get this problem to go away.
Never buying what Big Pharma's selling,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
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