On November 13th, 2009, Pharmaceutical companies flocked to a two-day FDA hearing into online drug advertising, which could influence their use of social media on the net. 1 Already, the explosive growth in online advertising has intensified public concerns: the pharmaceutical industry spent more than $1 billion on Internet ads last year and is projected to spend $1.7 billion on such marketing efforts in 2012, according to the Direct Marketing Association.2
Both Eli Lilly and Merck have received warning letters this year from the FDA accusing them of misleading online advertisements.3 But while the FDA scrambles to monitor online ads, who monitors the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry’s use of front groups to indirectly market their products?
A Washington Post article of June 16, 2009 reported that an increasing number of pharmaceutical firms are turning to social media tools, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace, to market their products. It cites how a community site sponsored by drugmaker McNeil called “ADHD Allies”—aimed at adults with ADHD—was established and offered an online podcast on financial advice and an “ADHD self-assessment tool.”4
British psychiatrist Joanne Moncrieff explains how this ultimately increases drug sales because only a biomedical approach is promoted: “Drug companies…provide funds for pro drug patient and carer groups and address advertising or disease promotion campaigns to the general public…This influence has helped to create and reinforce a narrow biological approach to the explanation and treatment of mental disorders and has led to the exclusion of alternative” treatments.5
Such websites do not mention company’s product but rather market the “disease.” In advertising, it can be accomplished through a strategy known as “condition branding,” where “mental illness” can be pitched just like cars, beer or laundry detergent. Witness the brand name “bipolar” and “social anxiety disorder” that drug companies marketed at a fever pitch.
John Read, PhD, Psychology Department, University of Auckland did an analysis of 54 random “advocacy” groups for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) through the Internet. The results, published in the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation this year, found 42% of the websites received drug company funding. The researchers found:
- “Patients tend to trust these organizations to act in an unbiased manner” but as earlier researchers argued in some cases “patient organizations have become a mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry in influencing regulatory authorities.”
- “Drug company influence within the area of mental health is prevalent and now extends to the Internet. This influence is not always transparent. This study suggests that drug company sponsorship of websites leads to a greater emphasis on pharmacology in the treatment of PTSD,” Dr. Read’s report concludes.6
ADHD Allies/ADHD Moms
In June 2008 Concerta was given an expanded indication by FDA and is now indicated for patients aged 6 to 65.7 In July 2008, McNeill Pediatrics—a subsidiary of Ortho-McNeill Pharmaceuticals—launched what they called an “unbranded group” called “ADHD Moms.” ADHD Moms markets the trademarked name “Mom-bassadors” to get mothers into the Facebook page. 8
- McNeill spuriously claims “the group is not product-specific, nor are there any advertisements for the company’s ADHD drug Concerta (methylphenidate).” Well not directly, but providing material for the site is a Dr. Quinn, a paid consultant and speaker for McNeil Pediatrics. 9 April White, who also provides content is a paid spokesperson for McNeil Pediatrics.10
- On April 22 2009, McNeill launched a second ADHD-focused Facebook page called “ADHD Allies,” this time targeting adults. The “Allies” are board members of another front group Attention Deficit Disorder Association (ADDA), funded by McNeill.11
- The pharmaceutical company has trademarked “ADHD Allies” and “ADHD Moms.” ADHD Allies was responsible for a “2008 Harris Interactive survey of 1,000 adults with ADHD.” Not surprisingly, the survey found the condition significantly affects them. 12
Log onto The Bipolar Journey: Living With Bipolar Depression website and while it does show AstraZeneca on the home page, there’s no mention of its blockbuster antipsychotic drug Seroquel, approved by the FDA in 2006 for “bipolar.” The site looks like a patient information site providing facts about the “disease” and misleadingly saying that it may be caused by a chemical imbalance—for which there is no evidence.
It refers people to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) that has received $23 million recently from at least 18 drug companies. The site shows that of 17 cites for the exhibit’s showing in 2009, 12 are conferences or events put on by NAMI.
It also links to The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, a group that received close to $1 million in pharmaceutical company funding in 2007.
According to an August 27 2009 press announcement, AstraZeneca launched its interactive exhibit, endorsed by New York psychiatrist Janet Taylor. The press release does not mention that Dr. Taylor has financial ties to the company.13
In 2005, global sales for Seroquel reached $2.8 billion. October 20, 2006, company announced Seroquel was FDA approved for bipolar.14 Within a year, sales reached $3 billion and then soared again in 2008 to $4.66 billion.15
By funding social media front groups that talk only about the “disorder,” drug companies can overcome fears of running afoul of FDA regulations that govern drug advertising and “are embracing social networks to help brand and position their companies in a positive light with consumers and practitioners.” The top 10 drug companies using social media are: Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim, AstraZeneca US, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Roche, and Merck.16
This post was written by CCHR International.
Coming next from CCHR Int: Psycho Pharma Front Groups
1 “FDA Addresses Drug Ads in Online Social Media,” Red Orbit, 13 Nov. 2009.
3 “FDA Addresses Drug Ads in Online Social Media,” Red Orbit, 13 Nov. 2009.
5 Joanne Moncrief, in a “Study of the Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry on Academic and Practical Psychiatry,” http://www.critpsynet.freeuk.com/pharmaceuticalindustry.htm
6 http://www.isst-d.org/jtd/mansell_&_read_ptsd_drug_cos_&_internet%20.pdf; Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 10:9–23, 2009
9 http://pharmexec.findpharma.com/pharmexec/News+Analysis/Ortho-McNeil-Talks-ADHD-On-Facebook/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/529878?contextCategoryId=39722
12 “Adults ‘Facing’ ADHD: ADHD Allies™ Offers Unique Online Community for Adults with ADHD on New Facebook® Page,” http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/concerta/36533/
15 “Seroquel Sales Up, Zyprexa Sales Stagnat, Cymbalta Sales Way Up in 2008,” http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2009/01/seroquel_sales_up_zyprexa_sales_stagnant_cymbalta_sales_way_up_in_2008.html
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Tags: ADHD Allies, Astra Zeneca, Bayer, bipolar, Concerta, Direct to Consumer, Eli Lilly, Facebook, FDA, former Pharma Rep, funding social media, GSK, Johnson and Johnson, Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, Living with Bipolar, Marketing, McNeill, Merck, Myspace, NAMI, National Alliance for the Mentally Illl, Novartis, Pfizer, pharma, pharmaceutical, psychiatric drugs, Roche, Seroquel, side effects, Social Media
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This kind of advertising needs to stop. It is already a known fact that the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry is not ethical in it’s practices. Psychiatrists and psychiatric drugs are killing our children, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our neighbours. It is time for all of us to stand up and be counted on this issue. It is within all of us to stop it and that is exactly what we must do. Each voice counts. Stop this insanity now.
Yes, it is true that the psychiatric drug industry is fueled by corrupt interests on Wall Street. In fact this is all ruining not just American mental health care but also American medical education with medical school and specialty training programs now being no more than glorified pharmaceutical sales circuses.
I recently wrote the following:
Many Full Service Stockbrokers Undermining Mental Health Of America
The only group of con artists across the United States who appear to be as consistently successful as the like-minded diabolically insane psychiatrists and psychologists in undermining the mental health of America for large profits are many of the full service stockbrokers. These stockbrokers, who should understand that financial security is mandatory in a search for mental health of individuals and of the society, are very quick to rob the small investor on the streets of any opportunities to ever compete effectively and get ahead in America. They consistently give only old line money the opportunity to corner the wealth in the nation and to make more money while nice and ambitious people with very high intellectual capacities are ruined before they ever can get started when dealing with these type of stockbrokers. And interestingly the many stockbrokers who refuse to open up the windows of economic opportunity to anyone besides those born into extreme wealth in society are among the most potent supporters of the psychiatrists and psychologists. These type of extremely wealthy and elitist stockbrokers who deal with tens of millions of dollars daily are responsible for literally driving tens of millions of their victims into poverty and intentionally abusing such terms as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to label their victims as the problem instead of themselves. They than work with the psychiatrists and psychologists to make these intentional misdiagnoses hold in courts of law and publicly. And so these stockbrokers together with the American psychiatrists and psychologists aside from causing intense pain and suffering for tens of millions of Americans and their families who have simply needed a good opportunity in a healthy way to get started in life have literally caused brain damage in children by being responsible for starving their families into hysteria. The human brain can not develop well without good nutrition and many American kids who end up flunking out of school and living lives of extreme desperation on the fringes of society could have been honor students if only their families had been given healthy opportunities to earn enough money to feed them well. And simply giving charity to the victims of such abuses is not the answer since it also takes freedom to achieve good mental health and there is no real freedom for people without financial independence which allows them to chart their own paths in life. And it is no accident that these type of unethical stockbrokers who work alongside the psychiatrists and psychologists to create such abusive conditions for people are directly responsible for raising tens of millions if not billions of dollars for the firms that market the psychiatric poisons which cripple millions of people a year and which operate the mental hospitals which are actually concentration camps where scores of people are beaten, raped and murdered daily.
Harold Mandel, MD
Reporter
Mandel News Service
http://www.mandelnews.com
The Harold Mandel Natural Mental Health Care Reform Foundation
http://www.haroldmandel.com/foundation.aspx
I’ve lost my mom and my only two siblings to psych-drugs …
What to say? What to do? How to stop the audacious take-over of mankind, that is happening right before our eyes? The dwindling spiral down into the created Matrix that these money-hungry selfish bastards have waiting for our children, grandparents and us is currently underway … what to SAY? What to DO? How to STOP it while still in it’s adolescent stage?
SAY, DO and STOP what you can … and when you think you can’t any more: SAY, DO and STOP some more! Thank you for being here – please continue!
A practical class-action-lawsuit will generate the billions of dollars needed to protect and care for the score of damaged humanity. It’s the only way to counter attack the extreme, overt violation of the Human Rights and the Constitution not only of children, the elderly, the veterans and people in general forced to take these poisonous, deathly, evil concoctions. The only way to stop the madness is not to watch the horror from the side lines and scream at these 60 years of human terrorism… white collar hoax… since the invention of Thorozine… it’s action! Let’s not deviate a second from this momentum that big pharma, psychiatry, psychiatrists, NAMI are being investigated by Distinguish Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) in Washington. Let’s write a book honoring him immediately by telling him our horrific stories and let’s tell him how inexpensive is to detoxify a person and liberate them from their torment of living with a poisoned brain and the savings in Medicaid in the long run… trillions? Let’s not allow to use humans as a commodity any longer.
All children must be taken out of psychiatric wards where they get pay $247,000/bed/year on average… to farms in the country for detoxification and long life rehabilitation care. It will generate thousands upon thousands of jobs for the one to one care when needed, and many more can normalized and be returned to their families. They won’t have to give their children up to the state. I guarantee you with my life we won’t see many more tragedies of massive killings provoked unfortunately by these psychotropics, neuroleptics, SSRI’s. Let’s not allow this horrendous wrongdoing any more, it’s too negative to take away the intelligence of a human being. It sounds like euthanasia. Our beautiful Country will be the undisputable bastion of democracy and we’ll prosper again.
Thank you for emailing me this video about the corrupt pharmaceutical industry creating manipulative, misleading advertising to create a dangerous market for new drugs. It seems that it’s not just psychiatric pharmaceutical drugs that are poisoning ignorant,gulible and vulnerable members of society, but other pharmaceutical drugs as well. Unfortunately, medical schools in the United States teach our medical students to treat the symptoms of a medical problem with drugs instead of making any effort to find out what the cause of the medical problem or disease is. All too often, what ends up happening is that the drug(s) prescribed to treat the symptoms causes secondary problems as a result of side-effects and the cause of the medical problem being ignored by the physician. There are M.D.’s in the U.S. that practice holistic and preventative medicine who take the time to educate the patient about the cause of their medical problem, but private insurance companies as well as Medicare and Medicaid do not pay holistic M.D.’s or doctors who practice preventative medicine. In my case, I was poisoned by someone with a chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticide and / or a polychlorinated biphenyl liquid when I was 15. Within four years after I was poisoned (toxic tort), two corrupt Ventura Hematologists (Evan Slater, M.D. & Dr. Guyn) discovered who poisoned me and what with. They knew that the poison had caused enlargement of my spleen and began to conspire to have someone cause my fragile enlarged spleen to rupture for the purpose of either killing me or, prevent me from dying of a low blood count (anemia and jaundice). But their plan was to prevent me from finding out that I had ever been poisoned and then sell my enlarged spleen for a lot of money to a pharmaceutical / biotech research company that was illegally using human spleens to create new drugs from illegal human immunology / genetic research. The spleen is part of the immune system as it produces special white blood cells called phagocytes. Phagocytes help protect people from developing pneumonia if they contract a virulant flu virus strain. Spleen tissue has also been used to conduct A.I.D.S. research (illegally). Beginning in the 1970’s, there has been documented cases of people ending up with an enalarged spleen after having been a toxic tort victim in which they were poisoned by someone with chlordane, heptachlor or, a polychlorinated biphenyl liquid, but were lied to by a hematologist or an internist who were partners in crime with the department of hematology / oncology, and immunology / pharaceutical studies at U.C.L.A. medical center in Westwood, Los Angeles County. Once such case ended up in a law suit against the surgeon, the hospital, and the biotech pharmaceutical research company associated with U.C.L.A. medical research. It was written up in the New York Times newspaper and is on the internet, but was never reported by the Los Angeles Times or any news media in California! If anyone wants more information on this New York Times article posted on the internet, please email me: brdlns2@gmail.com.
The only strategy that has a hope of working (among others) is to
email your senators and congressman as much and as often as you can.
Let them know what you think. (I have emailed Pelosi, Boxer and
Feinstein).
I am hooked on respiradone. When I stop taking it I have suicidal
ideations. Any suggestions?
Keep up the fight.
to Anthony Bullock: You may try Pfeiffer orthomolecular treatment center based in Chicago Illinois area. The premise is that mega doses of vitamins that are specific to each individual’s needs/deficiencies can get you back on track and g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y reduce the respiradone
These companies are increasingly pushing for more and more enforcement legislation not only at the domestic, but also at an international level. They pursue for such strict enforcement laws by influencing international organizations like the World Health Organization,the World Customs Organization, INTERPOL, etc. besides influencing national governments around the world. These companies have even managed to make States initiate a hush-hush negotiation for an international agreement that exceeds the norms in any present international IPR law governing the same.
These advertisements should immediately be stopped across the world and stringent actions, ranging from severe pecuniary penalty to capital punishment (which they seek from the erring public in case their Intellectual Property Rights are violated), be imposed upon the violating entities.
It is public knowledge that these companies take away the research carried out in the universities around the world, and sell them for making exponential profits without paying any heed to the price tag they fix for each such medication. The profit margin of some such companies had recently crossed even the GDP of some of the world’s nations.
It stands more than justified to punish such companies for what they are doing.
Please be sure to forward this important blog to your congressman and senator.
Wow! I wonder, since they have a Pill for ‘road-rage’, if they have one for, ‘BIG Pharma-Cos (not to mention the ‘Carbon Junkies’ in Big OilCo) Policies are destroying any remaining faith that I might’ve ever once had in Capitalism-rage’?!?
More seriously folks; I want to remind everyone that Teenaged Suicide Rates amount to the #3 killer of Kids in America – which, like Kurt Cobane, almost included ME; as, though I’m NOT justifying big Phama Cos Policies or the action of their shill Doctors, Chronic Depression and Puberty really DO kill young people.
My Point? When I was 21, the first Private Psychiatrist (read: not beholding to Federal Anti-Cannabis Law Justified Funding Restrictions)who I was ever seen by – which cost me a Large Part of my Army Severance Pay Package – ended up, quite on his own, telling me that POT is the best thing out there for Depression, based on his year of Clinical Observations; as I, during the last three months, had started using the stuff again – and he’d noticed that, “All my indicators – appearance, outlook, mood – have gone through the roof.”
That was True Wisdom – as Pot has been in the Shamans Black Bag for EONS; and it’s on it’s way back.
This makes Good Sense, as it was once compounded into over 6000 PharmaCo Manufactured Products!
I say this to whip up more support – as well as to encourage anyone out there with Teenagers who use the stuff to take the chance of LETTING THEM, IF they have any real Depression Issues!
I’m 44; I’ve been using it for 30 years; I scored a 155-170 on my IQ Test in 2000; so there goes the argument that it “builds up black stuff between your Brain Cells’ – or whatever!
[...] On November 13th, 2009, Pharmaceutical companies flocked to a two-day FDA hearing into online drug advertising, which could influence their use of social media on the net. Already, the explosive growth in online advertising has intensified public concerns: the pharmaceutical industry spent more than 1 billion on Internet ads last year and is projected to spend 1.7 billion on such marketing efforts in 2012, according to the Direct Marketing Association… Read Article [...]
Here in the Philippines our Filipino people are innocent and our government officials are all ignorant to impose security law or they are ignoring for the benefits of their owned self vested interest or to protect this millions dollars investment for their pocket commissions, they are no concern to the lives our community.
Good people you should see a amazing documentary by BBC with facts that prove psychiatry is fake. The documentary is: The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom. Foward the documentary to Dr. R.D.Laing. He made people aware of false labels in psychiatry. You can watch the documentary for free at: http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_TheTrap