{"id":108591,"date":"2018-04-09T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=108591"},"modified":"2018-04-15T18:07:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-15T17:07:30","slug":"new-lows-reached-with-drug-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/04\/new-lows-reached-with-drug-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"New Lows Reached with Drug Ads"},"content":{"rendered":"

26 Mar 2018 – <\/em>\u201cMy number two does not look like a number two. I don\u2019t know what to call it. Is there a number three?\u201d So begins an ad in an aggressive AbbVie campaign to sell the disease of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) in order to sell AbbVie\u2019s\u00a0drug<\/em> for it. EPI is characterized by frequent diarrhea, gas, bloating and stomach pain says the campaign whose pay off line is \u201cDon\u2019t Keep a Lid on It.\u201d Creon, AbbVie\u2019s drug to treat the hitherto almost unknown disease of EPI is priced at over $500 a prescription.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo-thirds of patients (66 percent) have never even heard of EPI and even more (78 percent) are not aware of the symptoms,\u201d says an AbbVie\u00a0press release <\/a>to create \u201cawareness\u201d among patients and doctors. Search results for EPI bring you to AbbVie\u2019s \u201cIdentify EPI\u201d sites replete with quizzes and videos of people Just Like You. Even if you have never heard of the disease or don\u2019t have all of its symptoms, you are a candidate for our expensive drugs says the shameless campaign.<\/p>\n

Another drug in AbbVie\u2019s fecal franchise is Humira, approved to treat moderate to severely active Crohn\u2019s disease and ulcerative colitis. Despite Humira\u2019s links to\u00a0lymphoma<\/a> and other malignancies, some fatal,\u00a0infections<\/a> including Legionella and Listeria, worsening and new onset congestive heart failure and fatal reactivation of hepatitis B virus, it has been the U.S.\u2019s top selling drug. Who says advertising doesn\u2019t work? Cynics might even ask if AbbVie makes drugs for the side effects of Humira.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Humira ads were so over the top, even those in its targeted demographic, those with inflammatory bowel diseases,\u00a0were offended<\/a>. Commenting on the TV ads which show a woman grimacing while she holds her stomach and a father wearing a pained expression as he heads to the bathroom, one person wrote, \u201cSpeaking as one who suffers from IBS . . . We don\u2019t need insulting reminders in the name of selling the latest drug.\u201d Others called the Humira ads \u201cinsulting,\u201d \u201cdepressing\u201d and \u201cdeplorable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I thought I was managing my moderate to severe Crohn\u2019s disease. Then I realized something was missing\u2014me. I realized my symptoms were keeping me from being there. So I talked to my doctor,\u2019\u201d the ads say according to FiercePharma. \u201cThe music tempo shifts to upbeat and he is shown picking up his daughter from school, taking her for ice cream and generally enjoying life with her, as the Humira risk and benefit voiceover runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

To sell exocrine pancreatic insufficiency AbbVie has given it the snappy initials EPI\u2013\u2013a contrivance which has also helped sell the conditions of ED (erectile dysfunction), Low T (low testosterone), SAD (season affective disorder) and HSDD (hypoactive sexual desire disorder) and the drugs to treat them. (Despite the catchy HSDD, initials for a \u201cdisease\u201d characterized by women not wanting enough sex, the so called \u201cPink Viagra\u201d is not selling.)<\/p>\n

Selling obscure diseases to sell obscenely priced drugs is unethical for two reasons. It doesn\u2019t just raise everyone\u2019s health care costs and raise their taxes through government programs like Medicare, Medicare, the VA and Tricare which often pay the freight. It makes a mockery of the entire U.S. health care system by aggressively seeking people\u00a0who are not sick<\/em> to \u201ctreat\u201d while ignoring millions who really are sick but for whom there is no profit in treating.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/p>\n

Martha Rosenberg is a freelance journalist and the author of the highly acclaimed <\/em>Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health, published by Prometheus Books.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 intrepidreport.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26 Mar 2018 – .\u201d Creon, AbbVie\u2019s drug to treat the hitherto unknown disease of EPI is priced at over $500 a prescription. Selling obscure diseases to sell obscenely priced drugs is unethical for two reasons. It doesn\u2019t just raise everyone\u2019s health care costs and raise their taxes through government programs. It makes a mockery of the entire health care system by aggressively seeking people who are not sick to \u201ctreat\u201d while ignoring millions who really are sick but for whom there is no profit in treating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capitalism","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}