Antipsychotic Drugs Will Not Avert Delirium Or Dementia Sugar Pill Will Work Better

A recent study major study found that anti-psychotic drugs such as haloperidol branded as Haldol are no more effective than a placebo for treating delirium or dementia. This is a similar study where anti-psychotics are no better than a placebo to avert depression.

Powerful drugs that have been used for decades to treat delirium are ineffective for that purpose are useless according to the New England Journal of Medicine. Many doctors in higher end medical facilities prescribe these drugs in intensive care units and emergency rooms across the nation. Millions worldwide are getting these drugs to combat delirium and they have zero effectiveness. This is why we call this Pharma Fraud. Insurance firms and patients are paying top dollar for products that do not work and have never worked.

Patients with delirium are often confused and incoherent and sometimes can suffer hallucinations. This can lead to long term issues. condition can lead to long-term cognitive problems, including a form of dementia.

We hope patients and insurance companies will sue these firms for fraud. Finally a study which is not stirred for pharma, but for the real truth.

Doctor Ordered Radio Host Wife's Killing to Protect Illegal Drug Ring, prosecutors say

A New Jersey endocrinologist hired a member of a motorcycle gang to kill his wife more than five years ago after she threatened to expose an illegal prescription drug ring the doctor was running with the gang, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon Tyner announced murder charges against James Kauffman, 68, in the May 2012 death of his wife, April. Ferdinand Augello, 61, a member of the Pagan Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, was also charged with murder in April Kauffman's death was also charged with trying to have James Kauffman killed. James Kauffman has since committed suicide while in custody awaiting trial.
Six other members of the gang were charged in connection with the drug ring.
Prosecutors said that Kauffman gave free prescriptions to people sent by Augello and that Augello would receive $1,000 per script or a number of pills after the prescription were filled. Those that received them either used the drugs or sold them.


The prosecutor told reporters that April Kaufman, a local radio personality who hosted a weekly program in the Atlantic City market, had threatened to divorce her husband over the scheme, a few days later she was found dead in her bedroom from gunshot wounds.
The trigger man has been identified as Frank Mullholland who died of an overdose of drugs in 2013. Since 2012 James Kaufman has be free or awaiting trial. He couldn’t wait any longer and took his own life.

This is more of the same pharmaceutical and medical fraud of criminal banding together. Doctors, psychiatrists, drug games and pharmaceutical companies. Where there is money and addiction you will find pharmaceutical companies and their enables Medical doctors

Sesame Street to Announce Autism Muppet

The Muppet to be named Julia already exits, but will get her autism depute on April 10th according to PBS and Sesame Street. It is in collaboration and a campaign awareness with Autism Speaks. Autism has also been linked to vaccines. The irony here is that Elmo and the surgeon general promoted that vaccines were safe, and to “tell your friends to get vaccinated too” as part of the ad campaign. PBS seems to want children under ten to be indoctrinated with promoting vaccines. What is a seven year old supposed to do pressure his or her mother?

Back in late 2015 Florida Congressman Bill Posey urged congress to investigate the CDC (Center for Disease Control) about a claim that MMR vaccines lead to high incidence of autism.
Nothing seems to have come of that. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved two drugs for treating irritability associated with the autism (risperidone and aripiprazole). Risperidone is actually an antipsychotic medicine. It is another one of those drugs that change the brains chemicals. If you believe that nonsense that all you are is a test tube. Risperidone is used to treat schizophrenia and symptoms of bipolar disorder or manic depression. It is also used in autistic children to treat symptoms of irritability. It is approved for use in psychotic conditions related to dementia. Pharmaceutical companies like the one drugs fits all conditions, so their duped doctors just prescribe them at will.
Aripiprazole is an antipsychotic. It is prescribed to treat agitation associated with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depression. Abilify is an aripiprazole drug. Strange though Abilify’s ad campaign is if your anti-depressant doesn’t work then you may need to add Abilify. There ads tell everyone that the products don’t work.
A person who is autistic has difficulty with communication, learns slower, and has social challenges. The bird brain pharma frauds have not come up with a drug to directly assist communication issues with autistic kids, but we are sure they will. They will call it a chemical problem in the brain, and mixes some powder with a drop of this or that and markets it as a solution. They used to call it snake oil years ago, or maybe pharma is autistic.
Pharma has gotten many to believe that the human body is a bunch or chemicals. And that your chemicals are all out of whack thus you need more chemicals to put those stray ones back together. Way too many people have bought into this non-sense, even good doctors included. It is all about money, and not solutions.

If you know organic all natural products are the way to go, then pharma drugs are not for you.

PSYCH MEDS LINKED TO 90% OF SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

Published: 12/18/2012 at 10:16 PM Wnd.com JEROME R. CORSI

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/psych-meds-linked-to-90-of-school-shootings/#ibrcKRTYBhZcoPWs.99
This is taken from an article in WND.com from 2012 that still resonates today.
From the moment any news emerges that a young man had carried out a horrific massacre of elementary-school children, politicians from local city halls to the White House have been restoking the age-old push for more gun control. While guns have been a common denominator in mass slayings at schools by teens, there’s another familiar element that seems increasingly to be minimized.
Some 90 percent of school shootings over more than a decade have been linked to a widely prescribed type of antidepressant called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs, according to British psychiatrist Dr. David Healy, a founder of RxISK.org, an independent website for researching and reporting on prescription drugs.
Dr. Healy said, “psychotropic drugs of pretty well any group can trigger violence up to and including homicide.”
“Second, the advocates of treatment claim both that it is the illness and not the drugs that causes violence and that we are leaving huge numbers of people untreated.”
But Healy argued that if this were the case, “we should not find that comfortably over 90 percent of school shootings are linked to medication intake.”
Dr. Peter R. Breggin, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and former full-time consultant at the National Institute of Mental Health, has advocated that the problems with killers like Adam Lanza began with “getting tangled up” with psychiatric medicine.
Breggin insisted there has been overwhelming scientific evidence for decades correlating psychiatrically prescribed drugs with violence.
Since the 1970s, Breggin has testified in approximately 100 trials, including one in which Judge Robert Heinrichs ruled the adverse effects of taking Prozac drove a 16-year-old in Winnipeg, Canada, to commit an unprovoked murder.
Breggin appeared before the Veterans Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010 in support of his 2008 book “Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime.”
Breggin testified to Congress that research conducted in the medical science demonstrates a causal relationship between antidepressant drugs and the production of suicide, violence, mania and other behavioral abnormalities.
He warned Congress of the risks of giving these drugs to heavily armed young men and women in the military.
Mainstream religion
Breggin asserted that establishment media “ignores the scientific evidence linking psychiatric medications and violent behavior because psychiatry is the religion of the mainstream media, and they don’t want to see the dangers of psychiatrically prescribed drugs.”
“Besides, the drug companies also have incredible influence through advertising such that they can call the shots,” he said.
He believes the Sandy Hook case fits the pattern of school shooters in some of the most famous incidents in recent memory, including the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007.
“Adam Lanza has in common with many of the young men who were shooters that they were outsiders who lived in the shadows, who deal with a lot of shame, humiliation and isolation,” Breggin explained.
He calls the psychiatric diagnoses “worthless.”
“We know exactly who they are,” he said. “They are called ‘geeky’ in the extreme. Not a single one has ever come forward with a close friend. They are alienated from their families, and they have been involved in psychiatry.”
Breggin insists that instead of psychiatric treatment, children of this kind need “more reaching out, more socialization, more caring, more involvement.”
“Our schools, our families, and our communities need to be aware of the kids who are withdrawn and violent, not because they are going to become violent – hardly any of them are going to become violent – but because these are really hurt kids,” he said.
“We can call them evil, we can call them mentally ill, but the pattern is really quite clear,” Breggin continued. “They are highly intelligent and highly withdrawn and they are all involved with psychiatry, so the claim psychiatry is going to do some good is really ridiculous.”
In many school shootings carried out by minors, court documents are sealed and the extent of chemical use is unknown to the public.
But in a number of high-profile cases, the link has been reported:
Kip Kinkel was withdrawing from Prozac and had been prescribed Ritalin when he murdered his mother and stepfather then shot 22 classmates, killing two, in 1998.
Christopher Pittman was withdrawing from Luvox and from Paxil when he killed his paternal grandparents in 2001.
Elizabeth Bush, who fired at fellow students in Williamsport, Pa., in 2001, wounding one, was on Prozac.
Jason Hoffman, was on Effexor and Celexa when he opened fire at his El Cajon, Calif., high school, wounding five.
Shawn Cooper of Notus, Idaho, was on antidepressants when he fired a shotgun on students and staff.
T.J. Solomon, on antidepressants, wounded six at his Conyers, Ga., high school.
Eric Harris was taking Luvox when he and fellow student Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before turning their guns on themselves at Columbine High School in Colorado.
At Virginia Tech in 2007, where 32 were murdered, authorities found “prescription medications related to the treatment of psychological problems had been found among Mr. Cho’s effects,” according to the New York Times.
“Violence and other potentially criminal behavior caused by prescription drugs are medicine’s best kept secret,” Healy said in a statement last month. “Never before in the fields of medicine and law have there been so many events with so much concealed data and so little focused expertise.”
In the past six years, Healy has authored two best-selling books analyzing the degree to which the pharmaceutical industry has influenced medical doctors to prescribe antidepressant drugs to patients with psychiatric problems: “Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression,” in 2006 and “Pharmageddon” in 2012.
Recently, Healy’s RxISK.org added a “violence section” to its website, allowing users to enter the name of a prescription drug to find out the side effects recorded in the more than 4 million adverse drug event reports filed with the FDA since 2004.
Was Lanza on meds?
Writing for Slate.com Monday, Emily Willingham was quick to warn against demonizing Asperger’s syndrome, or autism in general, as the cause of Lanza’s violence. Likewise, in a New York magazine piece titled “Asperger’s is a Red Herring to Explain the Newtown Massacre,” Adam Martin wrote, “As the nation sets out to understand how Friday’s massacre came to pass, some are rightly worried that the high-functioning form of autism will become unfairly stigmatized.”
Nevertheless, credible sources have not withdrawn published claims that Lanza was on prescribed psychiatric medication at the time of the shooting.
On CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday, Mark and Louise Tambascio, friends of the shooter’s mother, Nancy Lanza, said Adam Lanza was being medicated for Asperger’s.
“I know [Adam Lanza] was on medication and everything, but she homeschooled him at home cause he couldn’t deal with the school classes sometimes,” Louise Tambascio told CBS reporter Scott Pelley. “So she just homeschooled Adam at that home. And that was her life.”
Her comment followed Mark Tambascio explaining to Scott Pelley that “friends told us that [Asperger’s syndrome] did dominate the Lanzas’ lives.”
In addition, the Washington Post reported over the weekend an unnamed former neighbor of Nancy and Adam Lanza in Newtown, Conn., recalled Adam as “a really rambunctious kid” who “was on medication.”
The story became confused when a now discredited source claiming to be Adam Lanza’s “Uncle Jonathan” told several publications, including the Sun in the United Kingdom, that Adam was being treated with the strong anti-psychotic drug Fanapt.
Later reports found no relatives who knew “Uncle Jonathan.”
Separately, law enforcement officers have found evidence Lanza played graphically violent video games, the Hartford Courant reported on Sunday.
The Express in the United Kingdom reported Monday that Lanza had “an unhealthy obsession for violent video games” and that his favorite video game was said to be a “shockingly violent” fantasy war game called Dynasty Warriors, which is “thought to have given him inspiration to act on his darkest thoughts.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/psych-meds-linked-to-90-of-school-shootings/#ibrcKRTYBhZcoPWs.99

The Myths Promoted by Psychiatry and Pharmaceutical Companies about Anti-Depressants

According to a Recent CNN Article about Female Teen Depression
A professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and a co-author of a recent study. "The new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics highlights that most adolescents with depression do not receive treatment for their symptoms and underscores the need for increased attention to this condition."
What the report fails to disclose is that anti-depressants don’t work and are a complete failure. Another mental health professional Dr. David Healy indicates that psychiatry is gone astray. He indicates there are several myths about depression. One is that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. This myth is often used in pharmaceutical advertising. The truth is psychiatry has no idea the interplay of serotonin and biochemical processes. He indicates there is no chemical imbalance to begin with. The body corrects itself if there are health issues. By using psychotropic drugs the psychiatrist, doctor and pharmaceutical firm creates the imbalance.
Another myth he discloses is that psychotropic drugs is like insulin for diabetes. This claim is used in advertising in radio, TV, and promoted by psych’s and MD’s. The truth is that a patient lacks serotonin. A diabetes patient lacks insulin so they need insulin injections to survive. Depressed patients have no lack of serotonin, which pharmaceutical drug pushers claim to promote.
Essentially the use of anti-depressants has no science behind it. If a pharma firm, psychiatrics and drug pushing MD gives a teen a psych drug they are doing so without any science to confirm their claims. They are lying on TV, Radio, and Internet and Print ads that a person lacks serotonin, and that it cures the person ailment.
Another major myth is that psych drugs keeps patients healthy. This is a huge lie. Studies show that the increased use of these useless drugs increases normally transient problems into chronic ones. The number of disabled mentally ill has exploded in Western Countries since the huge promotion of psychotic drugs. Psych’es also claim it is rare that depressed people on their antipsychotics become bi-polar. That is patently untrue. Bi-polar ‘diagnosis’ has increased tremendously in the 20 years since anti-depressants and psychotics were universally promoted as a cure drug.
Remember psychiatry is the father of lobotomies (using an ice pick to fix mentally ill). They still use strait-jackets and ECT (Electric Shock Treatments). If you are referred to a psychiatrist then remember who they are.

How Big Pharma sells you drugs you probably don’t need: Celebrities who spread ‘disease awareness’

This is an article from Raw Story by Martha Rosenberg

IT SHOWS HOW PHARMA CREATES THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU OR YOUR CHILD HAS A CONDITION THAT ONLY VERY MINOR FEW PEOPLE MAY HAVE.
IT AID’S PHARMA TO MARKET TO A PERSON DIRECTLY AND MAKES A PERSON FEEL THEY HAVE A DISEASE WHEN THEY DON’T. IT CREATES A PIPELINE FOR FUTURE PATIENTS, WHO DON’T HAVE A DISEASE AND FOR PEOPLE TO SELF DIAGNOSE THEMSELVES.

Did you ever wonder why new medications so often debut right after awareness of the condition they treat increases? It is no coincidence. The tactic is called unbranded advertising and “disease awareness,” and drug companies spend more on it than they do for regular advertising.
This article was originally published by The Influence, a news site that covers the full spectrum of human relationships with drugs. Follow The Influence on Facebook or Twitter.
Unbranded disease advertising usually suggests that many more people suffer from a condition than anyone thought—it may even be a “silent epidemic.” It lists symptoms, offers “quizzes” and tries to scare people into “seeing your doctor.” The diseases may not be “made up,” but usually exist in much smaller numbers than is suggested. What disease awareness advertising does not do is tell you the drug that is being marketed for the condition or the company behind the “education.” (Which is why it is called “unbranded.”)
Pharma companies love disease awareness advertising because, unlike direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, risks and warnings of possible drug treatments do not have to be listed. In DTC ads, the risks and warnings are often as long as the sales pitch itself, and sometimes perversely “unsell” the drug even as the viewer is looking at sunsets and puppies.
But not everyone agrees with the omission in unbranded advertising. For example, Aaron Kesselheim, MD, a Harvard professor, told a New York Times reporter in 2013 that an ADHD disease awareness video that supports the safety of stimulant drugs while leaving out their risks is misleading and irresponsible.
Still, disease awareness does much of the heavy lifting in today’s Pharma marketing environment. “Disease awareness offers two primary benefit pathways for the brand that successfully engages it,” says a drug marketing article. It “can provide a lead generation source for later branded outreach” and it “offers an opportunity to inspire patients to some beneficial action or actions.”
Cynics may ask, benefit for whom?
Another drug marketing site agrees. “Disease awareness campaigns have long been fundamental to pharmaceutical and biotechnology marketing and medical teams’ respective communication plans,” it says. Disease awareness is a “tool to ensure that the right patients are prescribed the right treatments” and is “particularly important for diseases in which symptoms are nonspecific, incidence is infrequent, or treatments are not curative. For these diseases, physicians and mid level practitioners are less likely to be familiar with clinical developments or advances in the understanding of diagnostic factors and disease progression.”
Analyzing how successful such disease awareness campaigns are, The Guardian also weighed in:
“Typically, a corporate-sponsored ‘disease awareness’ campaign focuses on a mild psychiatric condition with a large pool of potential sufferers. Companies fund studies that prove the drug’s efficacy in treating the affliction, a necessary step in obtaining FDA approval for a new use, or ‘indication.’ Prominent doctors are enlisted to publicly affirm the malady’s ubiquity, then public-relations firms launch campaigns to promote the new disease, using dramatic statistics from corporate- sponsored studies.”
“Finally, patient groups are recruited to serve as the ‘public face’ for the condition, supplying quotes and compelling stories for the media; many of the groups are heavily subsidized by drugmakers, and some operate directly out of the offices of drug companies’ PR firms.”

“Are You Allergic to People?” and Other Aggressive Campaigns
Are your “allergic” to people? Do you “blush, sweat, shake—even find it hard to breathe,” when trying to socialize? If so, you may have “social anxiety disorder,” said one of the first “disease awareness” campaigns. It proved very successful. Concocted by the slick PR firm Cohn & Wolfe in 1999 to sell the soon-to-be-marketed SSRI antidepressant Paxil, news outlets operated as Pharma stenographers, reporting that as many as 10 million adults suffered from the “social anxiety” epidemic. Who knew?
After “social anxiety” disease awareness campaign—which coincided with the legalization of DTC advertising in the late 1990s—marketing boomed. Soon people began treating their “seasonal allergies,” dry eyes, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), Restless Legs syndrome, high cholesterol, and of course, depression, like never before. The subjects of disease awareness marketing often had nonspecific symptoms and vague diagnostic criteria.
Do you remember hearing about the many women suffering from “Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder” (HSDD) a few years ago? The disease awareness campaign wassponsored by drug giant Boehringer Ingelheim, to help sell its drug Addyi (flibanserin), which was moving toward FDA approval. The drug was later acquired by Sprout. The marketing included TV personality Lisa Rinna in an aggressive campaign called “Sex Brain Body: Make the Connection.”
Boehringer Ingelheim also wined and dined potential medical supporters, remembers London sex researcher Petra Boynton. “I’ve had two invitations to attend two two-day long ‘training days’ at top London hotels (with an honorarium of £1000 per session),” she wrote on a blog. “My understanding of the aim of these events were to highlight FSD (or more specifically Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder) as a problem and inform practitioners about treatment approaches.”
Though she declined to attend, Boehringer Ingelheim also asked Boynton to write a paper for the British Journal of Sexual Medicine. “They had clear instructions about what they wanted me to say and how this would set the scene that HSDD was a prevalent and distressing problem,” she remembers.
Men are not exempt from disease awareness marketing. Low testosterone or “Low T” has been aggressively marketed by Big Pharma, though it occurs rarely, according to experts.
“True instances of testosterone deficiency such as hypogonadism are rare—less than one half of one percent of men have this problem,” Boston University School of Medicine longevity expert Thomas Perls, MD told me in an interview. “Since massive marketing campaigns emerged in the late 1980s claiming that common symptoms like lack of energy, poor sleep, poor libido could be treated with testosterone, the number of men labeled with this disease skyrocketed. The new syndrome of aging-related low testosterone was facilitated by doctors’ organizations that allowed new and much less rigorous and specific definitions of hypogonadism. Some of these consensus panels were sponsored by pharmaceutical companies making and marketing testosterone.”
Nor are the “Low T” products necessarily safe. “The use of testosterone products (androgens) in men outside very limited indications is not a harmless measure,” says an article on Healthy Skepticism:
“Severe adverse effects from inappropriate use of androgens include sodium and water retention, oedema, acne, gynaecomastia, impotence, testicular atrophy, priapism, inhibition of spermatogenesis, degenerative changes in seminiferous tubules, impaired glucose tolerance, hypercalcemia, polycythaemia, decreased clotting factors, increased LDL cholesterol, aggressive behaviour, psychotic symptoms, physical and psychological dependence, withdrawal symptoms etc.”

Non-24 Hour Sleep Wake Disorder and Other Diseases Brought to Our “Awareness”
In 2009, CBS News reported that drugmakers had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to raise awareness of fibromyalgia which it called, “a murky illness, helping boost sales of pills recently approved as treatments and drowning out unresolved questions—including whether it’s a real disease at all.”
Eli Lilly and Pfizer had donated more than $6 million to “nonprofit groups for medical conferences and educational campaigns,” reported CBS. While fibromyalgia, like most diseases given such “awareness,” certainly exists, the timing and estimation of how many people “suffer” was totally orchestrated by Pharma and its many patient front-groups.
Like most disease awareness marketing, the cause of fibromyalgia is unknown, observed CBS, and “there are no tests to confirm a diagnosis. Many patients also fit the criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome and other pain ailments.”
Some diseases given awareness are so rare, they almost appear a satire or a joke. How many people, for example, suffer from the sleep disorders nacrolepsy, Shift Work Sleep Disorder and Non-24 Hour Sleep Wake Disorder, the latter almost always only affecting blind people? That has not stopped Pharma from scaring people with symptoms and quizzes to ask their doctors about and setting up unbranded websites to “educate” about the diseases.
For example the unbranded website Wake Up Narcolepsy, says “It can take as long as 10 to 15 years after the first symptoms appear before Narcolepsy is recognized and diagnosed. Many doctors are unfamiliar with Narcolepsy, even though it affects 1 in 2,000 people. Narcolepsy symptoms are like symptoms of other illnesses, such as infections, depression and other sleep disorders.” Narcolepsy can “sometimes be mistaken for a learning problem, seizure and even laziness, especially in school-aged children and teens. When Narcolepsy symptoms are mild, the disorder is even harder to diagnose.” The disease awareness is courtesy of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, not mentioned on the unbranded website, which makes the narcolepsy drug Xyrem that costs up to $35,000 for one year.
Of course, some disease awareness campaigns have been chillingly successful. A 2014 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that more than10,000 two- and three-year-olds in the US are now on the stimulants Ritalin, Adderall and their cousins for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While ADHD to many is a made-up disease, diagnosing children including preschoolers with behavioral and psychiatric conditions was unheard of until Pharma had expensive drugs to treat them. Ten years ago, the nation was sickened by the drug-related death of Rebecca Riley, treated for bipolar disorder, even though she was just four years old.
Adult ADHD is also increasingly given awareness. In 2009, Shire launched a Nationwide Adult ADHD Mobile Awareness Tour, which included a “mobile screening initiative” called the RoADHD Trip (get it?)
The caravan, anchored by “the RoADHD Trip Tractor Trailer,” which turned into a tented area with eight “self-screening stations,” traveled the country, visiting major cities such as Chicago, Indianapolis and Dallas. In each city, Shire said it was partnering with the Attention Deficit Disorder Association, “a leading adult ADHD patient advocacy organization, in an effort to assist up to 20,000 adults to self-screen for this disorder.” All orchestrated and planned with a non-profit as the front group. It's a sting by any other measure.

Why Unbranded Ads Solve Pharma Problems
It is no secret that the last few years have been very bad for Pharma. The antics of drug “re-pricers” like Martin Shkreli and Valeant Pharmaceuticals who buy old drugs and jack their prices, Pharma companies like Pfizer trying to flee US taxes by merging overseas (even though they live on our taxes), and the emerging evidence of how Pharma contributed to current opioid and heroin addiction problems have made Pharma a disdained industry. Even the American Medical Association (AMA) has declared its opposition to Pharma’s aggressive ways, suggesting limits on DTC drug advertising.
Pharma knows it is unliked, and like other unpopular industries—the chemical industry, seed companies like Monsanto, the gas and oil industry complex, Wall Street—it fears grassroots comments and Internet feedback which it cannot buy off.
“Adverse event reporting has been a concern for pharma since the advent of social media,” admits an article on Medical Marketing and Media addressing how the industry faces serious “public distrust” on social media. Rather than get defensive over “adverse reports” from patients or fight back, a marketing expert quoted in the article suggests “the way to earn trust is to show empathy, speak in a way that is credible to the patient and remember that social media is a relationship.” This sounds a lot like the “GMO Answers” approach that Monsanto and other seed giants use to address fears people have over genetically modified crops—using industry operatives to spin answers to questions.
Another Pharma marketer agrees, cautioning not to let bad patient buzz overshadow “the work you’ve done online….The vocal minority now becomes the published majority, and that becomes the experience that everyone attaches themselves to….Putting your head in the sand and ignoring these people is the wrong way to think about how people are experiencing your brand or your content.”
In addition to using industry shills, says the marketer, neutralize angry patients by encouraging them to tell their own stories—a tactic used by many Pharma-funded disease awareness sites.
In March I wrote in The Influence about the new campaign from PhRMA, the industry’s trade group, to defend outrageous drug prices: “Hope to Cures.” Like disease awareness marketing, the campaign depicts patient—like “Theresa,” diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 57, and “Charis,” suffering from ankylosing spondylitis at age 29—up close and personal. The profiles are intentionally tear-jerking, to show the good Pharma does and shame anyone who thinks it is profiteering.

The Celebrities Who Spread Disease Awareness
In addition to patient profiles, Pharma has used celebrity endorsements to sell drugs and raise disease awareness. Television personalities Joan Lunden and baseball player Mike Piazza pushed the allergy pill Claritin. Dorothy Hamill and the track star then known as Bruce Jenner pushed the pain pill Vioxx, which caused 27,785 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths.
But when actress Kathleen Turner appeared on CNN, she simply shared her battle with rheumatoid arthritis for disease awareness, not mentioning the arthritis drug she was raising awareness for or the manufacturers who were funding her, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer. Nor did TV talk show host Meredith Vieira mention any Merck bone products while “educating” women on the importance of strong bones in a national campaign which offered—any guesses?–free bone density screening. Sally Field, known as the family matriarch in the TV drama Brothers and Sisters, was the face of the bone disease awareness risks for women, not afraid to name the drug Boniva. “You have only one body and one life,” said Field in the ads which also claimed the drug “reversed” one loss. Since Vieira and Field raised “awareness” about the risk of bone thinning, the class of drugs they promoted—called bisphosphonates—has been linked to cancer, relentless pain, heart problems, jaw necrosis and the very fractures they were supposed to prevent.
More recently, tennis star Monica Seles raised awareness for “binge eating disorder,” actress Marcia Cross promoted awareness of migraine headaches and race car driver Danica Patrick promoted awareness of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Singer LeAnn Rimes has also promoted awareness of eczema and Paula Deen awareness of diabetes no doubt enabled by some of her rich recipes.


How to Get Nearer the Truth
One of the most dangerous parts of disease awareness is the lack of clear risks and warnings for the drugs that are implicitly promoted. We hear how Pharma valiantly battled patients’ diseases but nothing about the side effects (and prices) of the drugs in question.
One of the best sites to get the other side of the story is askapatient.com, a Webby award-winning, patient-driven site that lets you “Learn from the experience of real people who have taken drug treatments” and “Share your side effects or success stories” free from Pharma influence. Patients can read the thousands of entries about an individual drug, see a summary of effects for a drug based on FDA Medwatch data, and search for specific side effects.
Another site that quickly lets you see a drug’s side effects without Pharma influence and how frequent the side effects occur is HealthBee. “The short history behind the site was an attempt to figure out how prevalent some of the side effects of certain drugs that family members were taking were,” the developers told me. Since nothing seemed to exist and information was “very limited and lacking” the founders created the site themselves in 2013.
Finally, Worst Pills, published by the well respected Public Citizen, is the granddaddy of non-Pharma-influenced drug information sites. For a small subscription fee, patients can learn about the drugs they are taking or might take, as well as reading important reported stories like “Is XARELTO Really the ‘Right Move’ for Patients With Blood Clots or Risk for Stroke?” and “The Best Drug for Severe Acute Low Back Pain.”
The two big caveats to keep in mind about disease awareness advertising are: You probably don’t have the condition advertised; and if you do, the drug treatment marketed for it may have many buried risks.