The Intangible Magic of Celebrity Marketing

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Abstract

Drug industry insiders share their tips on using celebrities to market drugs and diseases

Abstract

Drug industry insiders share their tips on using celebrities to expand markets

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Most cited references 9

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Coverage by the news media of the benefits and risks of medications.

Adam Watkins, Eric Mah, L Bero … (2000)

The news media are an important source of information about new medical treatments, but there is concern that some coverage may be inaccurate and overly enthusiastic. We studied coverage by U.S. news media of the benefits and risks of three medications that are used to prevent major diseases. The medications were pravastatin, a cholesterol-lowering drug for the prevention of cardiovascular disease; alendronate, a bisphosphonate for the treatment and prevention of osteoporosis; and aspirin, which is used for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. We analyzed a systematic probability sample of 180 newspaper articles (60 for each drug) and 27 television reports that appeared between 1994 and 1998. Of the 207 stories, 83 (40 percent) did not report benefits quantitatively. Of the 124 that did, 103 (83 percent) reported relative benefits only, 3 (2 percent) absolute benefits only, and 18 (15 percent) both absolute and relative benefits. Of the 207 stories, 98 (47 percent) mentioned potential harm to patients, and only 63 (30 percent) mentioned costs. Of the 170 stories citing an expert or a scientific study, 85 (50 percent) cited at least one expert or study with a financial tie to a manufacturer of the drug that had been disclosed in the scientific literature. These ties were disclosed in only 33 (39 percent) of the 85 stories. News-media stories about medications may include inadequate or incomplete information about the benefits, risks, and costs of the drugs as well as the financial ties between study groups or experts and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

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Registering clinical trials.

Drummond Rennie, Kay Dickersin (2003)

That it is not possible to find information about all initiated clinical trials is of international concern. This is a particular worry because scientists tend to publish their positive findings more often than their negative findings (publication bias). A comprehensive register of initiated clinical trials, with each trial assigned a unique identifier, would inform reviewers, physicians, and others (eg, consumers) about which trials had been started and directly address the problem of publication bias. Patients and their clinicians could also know which trials are open for enrollment, thus speeding medical advances. Individuals who participate in clinical trials typically provide consent in the belief that they are contributing to medical knowledge. But if the knowledge gained is never reported, the trust between patients and investigators and that between patients and research ethics review boards are both damaged. Ethical issues are of particular concern if industry is gaining financially from public involvement in trials, but refusing to reciprocate by making information from industry-sponsored trials generally available. All stakeholders-investigators, research organizations and institutions, journal editors, lawmakers, consumers, and others-must act now, together and in their own domains, to ensure comprehensive registration of clinical trials.

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Alosetron: a case study in regulatory capture, or a victory for patients' rights?

Ray Moynihan (2002)

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Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): PLoS Med

Journal ID (publisher-id): pmed

Title: PLoS Medicine

Publisher: Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )

ISSN (Print): 1549-1277

ISSN (Electronic): 1549-1676

Publication date (Print): November 2004

Publication date (Electronic): 30 November 2004

Volume: 1

Issue: 2

Electronic Location Identifier: e42

Author notes

Ray Moynihan is an investigative reporter in Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America. His book Selling Sickness, coauthored with Alan Cassels, will be published in 2005. E-mail: raymond.moynihan@ 123456verizon.net

Competing Interests: The author declares that he has no competing interests.

Article

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0010042

PMC ID: 529428

PubMed ID: 15578110

SO-VID: e33ecdf6-b376-493d-9214-b066bf7d9840

Copyright © Copyright: © 2004 Ray Moynihan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

The Intangible Magic of Celebrity Marketing

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Neuropharmacology and Therapy

Most cited references 9

Coverage by the news media of the benefits and risks of medications.

Registering clinical trials.

Alosetron: a case study in regulatory capture, or a victory for patients' rights?

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