Friday, May 18, 2007

'Round the Sphere with Christiane Truelove: Tricky Wonkers or Wonky Tricks?

If you are not already a subscriber to PharmaLive's e-newsletter "Pharma Blogs: Week in Review" edited by Christiane Truelove, do it now! (subscribe here) It's a nice Friday morning treat, especially when she highlights comments form some of my favorite bloggers in the Pharma BlogosphereTM, although this week "not so much" viz-a-viz my favorites.

Everyone, it seems has an opinon of Michael Moore's new documentary SiCKO, but no-one has seen it! I'm on record with my "Mr. Moore, Don't Ignore" campaign to get a special screening for us pharma bloggers.

Wonky Tricks
Christiane quotes Drug Wonks' Peter ("industry pit bull") Pitts declaring that Moore's film is not doing well in test-market trials. "Can anyone take a film about health care from a clinically obese person seriously?" Mr. Pitts asks.

How does Peter know about SiCKO test market trials? Simple. All he has to do is qualify his statement with "according to inside sources," which he never cites (don't take my word for it; see "Sicko flops in test market trials").

Of course, if you do a Google search on "SiCKO test market", you will find Peter's post plus pundits who pander to Peter by citing his post. A complete circle jerk and PR wonky trick!

According to my inside source -- ie, my gut -- Peter Pitts is full of sh*t!

3 comments:

. said...

Hey John,

That is a great idea! You invite me (expenses paid of course :)) to NYC for a special screening of SICKO, and I won't say anything snarky about you... for say 2 weeks :))

However, I must say, that I think MOST people see through the negative spin PHARMA apologists are trying to give the SICKO film A PRIORI.

That isn't how us scientists do research? Is it? We should let the evidence speak for itself.

I believe Michael Moore is a hero of our time and will be shown to have impacted the democratic process in the US, in decades to come. I think people don't like him; so they diss his message.. hey.. shoot the messenger, but listen to his message first, before judging.

Thank you.

Dr. BK

Antoine Clarke said...

Surely Christiane Truelove's Pharma Blog roundup is an obvious thing to do as a blog with RSS feeds. It would cost Pharma Live precisely NOTHING to have a blogger account. In fact, couldn't they even stick some ads on it so it BROUGHT IN revenue?

The failure to do so is actually the biggest credibility problem I have with the newsletter.

PharmaGuy said...

Please, don't give her any ideas! :-)