Monthly Archives: August 2024

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The Tragedy of Matthew Perry’s Drug Addiction and Death Isn’t a One-Off.

The tragedy of Matthew Perry’s drug addiction and death isn’t a one-time regrettable incident. Americans are addicted to a slew of drugs because of aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies.

Watch television for any length of time and you will see that these drug-pushers dominate advertising time. 

The U.S. and New Zealand are the only countries that allow direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements, according to USC’s Center for Health Policy and Economics. The result? Drug utilization is” highly responsive” to advertising exposure and “…those who initiate treatment due to advertising are on average less adherent, which suggests that some of the increase in utilization might be unnecessary.”

Direct to consumer prescription drug advertising also exposes prospective users to often ignored risks. 

Ever heard of Tardive dyskinesia? If you watch television, you probably have seen the commercial for Austedo XR featuring a woman with shaking hands trying to grip a coffee cup. 

Tardive dyskinesia is caused by long-term use of neuroleptic drugs, which are used to treat psychiatric conditions.

What you might not pay much attention to is the drug’s possible side effects, which include Irregular heartbeat, Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome, Restlessness and Parkinsonism. 

Or how about LYBALVI® to treat manic or mixed episodes in adults that happen with bipolar 1 disorder, either alone for short-term (acute) or maintenance treatment or in combination with valproate or lithium.

The list of possible side effects seems endless, including increased risk of death in elderly people with dementia-related psychosis.

In a television commercial for Abbvie’s Rinvoq, prescribed to treat arthritis in adults, a woman enjoys a trek through a rock canyon and a man teaches children how to tap dance. 

It all sounds so simple. Take this and you’ll get better.

But the truth is the drug has a lot of potential hazards, including:

  • Increased risk for developing serious infections that may lead to hospitalization or death. Reported infections include active tuberculosis (TB), invasive fungal infections, bacterial, viral, including herpes zoster, and other infections.
  • Lymphoma and other malignancies.
  • A higher rate of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) (defined as cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, and stroke).
  • Thrombosis, including deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and arterial thrombosis, with many of these adverse effects serious and some resulted in death.
  • Gastorintestinal (GI) perforations. 

The message of most commercials? Adam Lenkowsky, executive vice president, chief commercialization officer and head of U.S. oncology at Bristol Meyers Squibb said at a Jan. 4, 2024, investor event that the point of the commercials is to “bring patients into treatment”. 

In other words, in theory, the companies aren’t really pitching their drugs directly to consumers. Instead, they want prospective patients to badger doctors to prescribe it.

Such appeals must drive doctors crazy. After all, if the promoted drug was a realistic treatment option, a skilled doctor would likely have already thought of it. The commercials are an attempt to get in the middle of the patient-doctor relationship in a way that favors the drug company. 

The FDA requires that drug advertisements “…must present a fair balance of drug benefits and risks, with the most important risks provided in an audio (i.e., spoken) format.”  But counterintuitively, “… in giving a laundry list of side effects associated with any given prescription drug…consumers may actually be more likely to believe that the drug is effective in treating the condition for which it is designed,” argues Cohen, Placitella & Roth, a Pennsylvania and New Jersey law firm that handles pharmaceutical litigation. 

In 2015, the American Medical Association called for a ban of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription drugs. Nevertheless, spending by the pharmaceutical industry on television advertisements has continued to accelerate, with national health care costs largely driven by drug spending.

It’s time to renew, and act on, AMA’s call.

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Buried in Political Fundraising Texts? Grin and Bear It.

Like the bubonic plague, a pestilence of political fundraising messages has descended on me. 

“WOW, we’re blown away!” said a frenetic message I recently received from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). “Since Kamala Harris announced Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, Top Democrats have UNLOCKED a 400% match through MIDNIGHT Tonight!!!…So please: Will you rush a 4X-MATCHED $3 to the DCCC…”

The Republicans are after me, too.

“Patriot – please don’t ignore this message; we’re grasping at straws here…,” said a recent text message from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). “The Democrats are already out-raising and out-spending our America First candidates… Can we count on you to give $10 to ensure Senate Republicans can fight back against Joe Biden and his extremist Democrats in the Senate?”

And in a text message reminiscent of Mission Impossible, where instructions to a secret agent self-destruct after playing, I got a text from Donald Trump Jr. pleading for money and adding, “Please handle this message with care & delete after reading.”

I’m registered as “unaffilated” with a party, but still get most of the online entreaties from Republican-affiliated groups. That may be because, according to research conducted by YouMail, Republicans are outpacing Democrats in political text messaging in 2024 by a ratio of at least 2 to 1. 

“Lara Trump viewed your profile yesterday and nominated you for LIVING LEGEND STATUS,” said one message from the Republican National Committee. “This is the highest honor the co-chair can bestow, and she selected YOU.”

Kellyanne Conway, who served as Senior Counselor to President Trump during his term, has pleaded with me to complete a National Security Survey and, by the way, “Will you contribute your most generous gift to support our campaign to take back the Senate and elect a Republican majority?”

Why, you might ask, are the Democratic and Republican parties so damn aggressive in their fundraising? After all, the Biden—now Harris—campaign committee raised $284.1 million and Trump’s campaign committee raised $217.2 million in total between January 2023 and June 30, 2024, the most recent date for which Federal Election Commission filings are available.

Initial numbers from July suggest, however, that the money race has tightened. The Harris campaign reported it raised $310 million last month and had $377 million in cash on hand, while the Trump campaign reported raising just $138 million in July, but still had $327 million in cash on hand.

And both parties expect to spend a lot more.

A report from AdImpact predicted that the 2024 cycle will be the most expensive presidential campaign ever, with total spending expected to reach $10.69 billion, 19% more than spending in the 2019-2020 presidential cycle.

Since text messaging is the primary tool for fundraising, expect a lot more of it. 

And don’t expect to stop the deluge by replying “STOP”. That’s a useless effort that tells the sender your phone number is both active and responsive. Blocking the sender’s phone number won’t do much either, because all it does is stop messages from that specific blocked number.

So hang in there. It will end on Nov. 5. 

One more thing:

A common feature of political fundraising texts is an attempt to lure you in with a promise your donation will be matched (equaled or multiplied) by an unknown source. It’s likely a ruse. Don’t believe it.

According to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit that tracks money in U.S. politics, “…legal experts say it is hard to see how donation matching could happen given campaign contribution limits. And there are no accountability mechanisms to determine whether campaigns actually follow through with their promises.”

“I think these promised matches are largely a marketing ploy from direct mail fundraising,” Michael Kang, a law professor at Northwestern whose expertise includes campaign finance, told OpenSecrets. “They stir up contrived urgency.”