Scott Hensley Quits! What's in Store for WSJ Health Blog?

I noticed that lately the Wall Street Journal Health Blog was a bit light on number of posts being made. At first I thought that not having Ed Silverman and Pharmalot to compete against, the folks at WSJ Health Blog were just being lazy. But now I learn that Scott Hensley is leaving. Here's his farewell post:

A little more than two years ago, I first clicked the publish button on this blog, nervously putting our debut post on the Web. Now, more than 3,900 posts later, I’ve had the pleasure of hitting that button for the last time.

I’m leaving The Wall Street Journal and the blog today. In case you couldn’t tell, it’s been an absolute ball.

The blog launched with high hopes and unknown prospects in March 2007. Happily, from the start the response to our online experiment was extraordinary.

For me, a print reporter turned founding editor of the blog, the thousands of thoughtful reader comments and the kindness of other bloggers have been especially gratifying.

Now I join the ranks of readers of the blog, which I’m confident will carry on just fine without me. If you’d like to stay in touch, the best bet is Twitter, my other fascination.

You can still follow Scott via Twitter: http://twitter.com/scotthensley

But what's going to happen to WSJ Health Blog? Scott says the WSJ Blog will do just fine without him. Jacob Goldstein, Scott's partner, is still posting to the blog, but like other blogs that have lost its "founding" pioneer -- notably Pharmalot and CNTO411 -- WSJ Health Blog may be headed toward obscurity. One hint: Scott refers to the blog as an "experiment," which doesn't sound like a business plan destined to survive.

The Problem with Print Media Blogs

I've often criticized "blogs" owned by the print media (ie, newspapers) as not being in the same category as "traditional" blogs written by individuals. For one thing, editorial policies that rule these "media blogs" often do not allow readers to "look under the curtain" that news organizations place around the news.

Another problem, which I have often noticed with media blogs, is that they tend to write about the same topic at the same time! You can see this graphically by accessing PharmaMarketingNetwork's Pagecast, which I maintain.

The following was recently captured from that page:

At the time these images were captured, Wall Street Journal Health Blog and Pharmalot -- the two most popular print news media blogs in the Pharma Blogosphere -- simultaneously had these as their top posts. This happens often.

A similar phenom can be seen in the evening network news programs on TV. You can flip through the channels and see the same story running at the same time on all three networks (you can also see the same drug DTC ads running at the same time on all three networks!).

The WSJ Health Blog got some criticism at a recent meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (see this post). WSJ Blog author Scott Hensley admitted that "some in the audience grumbled that the way we do things — a generally news-driven rather than an opinion blog — isn’t bloggy enough for their taste." He also called attendees "Egghead Editors and Publishers" and the "brainy bunch," which generally are derogatory terms meant to put smart people in their place, if you know what I mean. Yet, Scott claims that his blog "is building a community of smart readers." Seems to me, Scott, you can't build a community of smart people and insult the whole class of smart people as "eggheads" at the same time.

Of these two blogs, I like Pharmalot best because I get Ed Silverman's -- the author's -- personal point of view on the news. With the WSJ Health Blog, I just get the news -- which is fine if you want a Cliff Notes version of the WSJ's printed health section.

Pharmalot is also more creative, especially with its use of graphics. Hey, WSJ guys! Get with the 21st Century -- it's a colorful world out there. You have to break out of the B&W etch-a-sketch portraits that your print brethen are so proud of. Maybe Mr. Murdock will read this and bring some color to the WSJ front page and to the WSJ Health Blog too!

'Round the Sphere: Motivational Deficiency Disorder Strikes Again!

I've just returned from a few days vacation on the beach in Sunny Isles, Florida and I haven't yet recovered from the Motivational Deficiency Disorder (MDD) symptoms that resulted!

If you haven't heard about MDD, you can read about it on the WSJ Health Blog and Pharmalot.

Of course, MDD is a made-up disease and the butt of a spoof video produced by and organization called Consumers International (CI).

This isn't the first time CI produced a MDD video spoof. But there seems to be a rash of videos making fun of pharma marketing knocking around the Pharma Blogosphere these days. Is there a connection between them all?

To find out, you might want to read the post "Making Fun of Pharma Marketing is Easy" over at Pharma Marketing Blog.

P.S. CI also hosts the Marketing Overdose Blog, which CI says is devoted to "Campaigning against irresponsible drug promotion." I'd say they are campaigning against ALL drug promotion!

'Round the Sphere: True Confessions and Omissions

Dr. Carlat's (author of The Carlat Psychiatry Blog) confession of a past stint as a paid drug industry "consultant" was first sighted by me in the Wall Street Journal Health Blog here.

[BTW, kudos for to the WSJ Health Blog for attaining the #6 position in eDrugSearch's list of Top 100 health Blogs. This beats Pharmalot, which has dropped back to #42. Pharma Marketing Blog, however, is close behind WSJ in the #11 position!]

Howard Brody over at Hooked on Ethics blog pointed out a few things Dr. Carlat omitted ini his confession and suggested that the $30,000 Dr. Carlat received as "honoraria" was actually a bribe to prescribe more Effexor ER (see Carlat's 'Dr. Drug Rep'--Some Further Possibilities). He also suggested that the same is true for the other 199,999 physician "consultants."

I dunno. The math just doesn't work for me. $30,000 is a lot to get maybe 25 or so new patients on the drug, which is probably the extent that Dr. Carlat to increase his NRx for Effexor ER. I offered a different ROI analysis in my post on the topic (see "Dr. Carlat's True Confession: 199,999 More to Go").

My conception of the conversation Dr. Carlat had with the Wyeth sales manager the day after he was less than a stellar spokesperson for Effexor ER (see here for the back story).

You might also want to read the comments posted to Carlat's own blog here. One comment posted by a psychiatrist in private practice in NYC included this confession, demonstrating once again how naive physicians claim to be:

"I was particularly struck, okay, terrified, by your description of the way the AMA sells information, and that that, and purchasing prescribing information from pharmacies aren't illegal. Everyone's so conscious of HIPAA laws, you'd think there would be some corresponding protection for physician privacy."

Carlat also claimed to be "astonished" at the level of information drug companies have about the prescribing habits of physicians. As if that were some kind of state secret!

As for "physician privacy," imagine if the prescribing habits of physicians were really considered private information that the public had no right to see! How would we hold them accountable? As a matter of fact, the government (eg, HHS) should spend some dough getting their hands on these data and see if physicians really are prescribing the right drugs for patients and link Rx behavior with patient outcomes. O yeah, forgot. That would require universal electronic medical records -- a pipe dream long forgotten by the current administration!

'Round the Sphere: PDUFA, DTC and Pet Turtles Too!

The Food and Drug Administration Revitalization Act (S.1082) has been approved by Congress (see "Congress Expands FDA's Oversight On Drug Safety") and will soon be signed into law (you can read the entire bill here).

While Ed Silverman over at Pharmalot makes a big deal out the intense lobbying by advertising agencies and broadcasters to make sure the bill had no restrictions on DTC (see "Why Tougher DTC Restrictions Were Killed"), he overlooked the murky-water lobbyists who worked hard to ensure there were also no restrictions on the marketing and sales of pet turtles.

I refer, of course, to Title VII of the bill, which states that the FDA is prohibited from restricting the sale of turtles less than 10.2 centimeters in diameter.

The pet turtle industry feared a "turtle moratorium," however the Pet Turtle Advertising Council of America (PTACA) lobbied hard and long to have Title VII inserted into the bill. It would have been unseemly for turtle farmers, wholesalers, or other commercial retail sellers of pet turtles to do so directly.

For more on that, see "DTC Here to Stay; Pet Turtles Too!" over at Pharma Marketing Blog.

The WSJ Health Blog also covered this story (about the DTC advertisers' lobby, not the pet turtle lobby) -- see "Advertising Allies Turn Tide for Pharma."

PhRMA -- the US drug industry trade association -- was ecstatic about the bill's provision regarding the preview of broadcast TV ads, but was mysteriously silent about the turtles:

"...the legislation will enable FDA to hire additional employees to review broadcast drug advertisements prior to public dissemination, helping to ensure that benefits and risks are clearly and accurately communicated. It also will create strong incentives for companies to submit such advertisements to the agency before airing them, in accordance with PhRMA's Guiding Principles on Direct-to-Consumer Advertisements about Prescription Drugs." (See "PhRMA Statement on Congressional Passage of PDUFA".)

NRx, of course, had more pressing news to report: ie, "Getting high on a can of Coke."

Hundreds of people every year are poisoned by pet turtles and we're talking about getting high from Coke?!!! Something's not right.

Finally, Mark Senak over at Eye On FDA, began his post ominously:

"As we all wait anxiously for Congress to do its job and actually produce legislation for signature, and as many FDA employees see their jobs hanging in the balance while awaiting PDUFA IV, some may wonder what it is all about and what is at stake."

Clearly, Mark is more worried about those poor FDA employees -- whom I calculate will be paid $231,481.48 per year to preview TV DTC ads (see my math here) -- than about those pet turtle owners who might have been denied licking the backs of their reptiles to get high!

'Round the Sphere: China, TV Ads, and Malls

Wow! The Blogger servers were down over one hour this morning, right after I posted about FDA testing TV ads in malls across the USA (see "FDA at a Mall Near You: The Manchurian Connection") and after sending an email notice to thousands of my subscribers notifying them of the new post. Talk about bad timing!

BTW, if you are a subscriber, I love you! I really do!

Other bloggers in the Pharma Blogosphere had comments about the proposed FDA survey of consumers.

Ed Silverman over at Pharmalot, for example. gave the details as revealed by the FDA in the federal register -- a wonderful book, BTW; not too much murder or mayhem.

Ed, who may not believe in coincidences, questioned whether the announcement was in reaction to "a study in The New England Journal of Medicine [that] found that FDA policing of advertising has declined steadily in recent years." (See "FDA Will Examine Those Upbeat TV Ads").

Sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists out there, but the FDA has proposed and may have even conducted a number of these "mall intercept" studies. I point this out in my blog over there at Pharma Marketing Blog (did I already mention my post to Pharma Marketing Blog on this topic? Yes? No? OK, here it is.)

Jacob Goldstein over at The WSJ Health Blog introduced the topic this way:

"A lithe woman dances her way through a field of flowers, or whatever. Maybe her hair’s blowing in the wind. She’s definitely smiling–a lot. Meanwhile, the monotone voiceover tells you about horrible things like diarrhea, swelling and heart disease. So what’s the real message about the drug being advertised–the woman’s winning smile or the announcer’s warning?" (See "The Pictures Are Happy, the Words Are a Bummer").

Other, less imaginative bloggers in the Sphere (who will remain nameless), came late to the game and more or less re-iterated what Ed already said about the link between the NEJM study and the FDA study. At least one of these other bloggers got the basic information wrong and reported that 2,000 people would be studied when actually only 1,020 will be surveyed (2,000 will be screened, but not all of them surveyed). Small point, but good journalists -- like Ed and Jacob -- get their facts straight!

But no blogger, other than myself that is, made the connection between this proposed study and China.

What caught my attention in the FDA announcement was that no-one who was able to read Chinese would be included in the study.

Whaaa! Is this racial discrimination? Has some law of the land been broken? Why exclude Chinese citizens over the age of 40, all of whom I assume read Chinese?

I am not going to reveal the reason for this here or how recent news about China imports come into the picture. You'll have to read my post over there at Pharma Marketing Blog to find out.

BTW, another story I linked to the FDA announcement was the one that was written up in the Newark Star Ledger and summarized by -- guess who! -- Ed Silverman over at Pharmalot, which is owned by -- guess who! -- the Newark Star Ledger (not that there's anything wrong with that!).

That story was about the measurement of saccadic eye motion, which provides a kind of window into subliminal thoughts (see "Drug Ads Are Ignored In The Blink Of An Eye").

Of course, I had already interviewed Lee Weinblatt, the inventor of the technology used to measure saccadic eye motion in subjects viewing print and TV DTC ads, in a July 25, 2007 Pharma Marketing Talk podcast (listen to it here -- it's quite entertaining and educational).

And I first published a synopsis of the technology in my FREE Pharma Marketing News e-newsletter (see "Stop Wasting $Millions on Ineffective DTC Ads!").

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WSJ Health Blog: Not So Bland Afterall!

Have you noticed a change in the WSJ Health Blog after I commented that "Frankly, aside from the headlines, it's a little bland"?

Take today's post, "John Johnson Leaving Johnson & Johnson", for example. Let me reproduce the whole thing here:

John Johnson is leaving Johnson & Johnson to run ImClone Systems.

No word on whether John H. Johnson (pictured, left) is related to Robert Wood Johnson (pictured, right) or Edward Mead Johnson, founders of Johnson & Johnson.

But regardless of any connections among Messrs. Johnson, we have to wonder whether Johnson will be glad to be free of the possible confusion of being John Johnson at Johnson & Johnson. (We called Johnson & Johnson and got John Johnson's voicemail, but didn't hear back.)

We checked in with Avery Johnson, WSJ's Johnson & Johnson reporter (who doesn't think she's related to Johnson, Johnson or Johnson), but our Johnson hadn't spoken with John Johnson.

What we do know is that Johnson, 49, has been company group chairman of J&J's world-wide biopharmaceuticals unit. He starts his job at ImClone later this month.

Financier and ImClone chairman Carl Icahn welcomed Johnson aboard. "We look forward to working with him to take the company to the next level," Icahn said in a statement.

Now that's funny!

The post was made by Jacob Goldstein. Nice job!

Murdock, the WSJ Health Blog, and Beyond!

While much attention has been paid to Peter Rost taking over NRx -- the blog formerly known as BrandweekNRx -- no one has voiced concern over the impact Rupert Murdoch will have on the tenor of the WSJ Health Blog, which is one of the venerable stars in the Pharma Blogosphere.

I scan the WSJ Health Blog every day, but seldom read every post. Frankly, aside from the headlines, it's a little bland -- just like the WSJ itself. It also lacks personality -- several different journalists contribute to the blog and there is no single, discernible voice. But, it is informative, covers the important issues and gets the facts straight, all of which should please Christiane Truelove who covers the Pharma Blogosphere in her weekly "Pharma Blogs: Week in Review" newsletter.

But the WSJ Blog gets scant mention in Truelove's newsletter and is seldom referenced by other bloggers in this space. Maybe that's just my impression -- let me know if you disagree.

Not the WSJ Health Blog needs us bloggers to help it get readers -- links to the blog are front page and center on the main WSJ web page and in practically every health related online article published by the WSJ.

Will Murdoch make changes to the WSJ Health Blog? If so, what changes will he or should he make?

Fard Johnmar over at HealthcareVOX counted off "4 Reasons Why The News Corp Dow Jones Merger May Be Good For Communications Pros."

Probably the most important reason Fard mentions is the influx of "fresh ideas" and Fard thinks that is good:

"Overall, Murdoch seems to understand that the media business needs fresh ideas. If he finds new ways to monetize content and deliver it to more people more power to him. Change ladies and gentlemen is good."

Certainly, like the WSJ itself, the Health Blog could benefit from NEW readers and a wider audience.

Fard also believes that Murdoch needs to take care that WSJ journalists are not stolen away by the NY Times, Washington Post, and their ilk. "One of Murdoch’s first tasks is to prevent talent from fleeing the paper."

Au contraire, Fard! Murdoch should allow the WSJ old-schoolers to flee and bring in "fresh" blood to take their place. Maybe he should even hire bloggers who have few journalistic scruples, which surely have hindered the ultimate monetization of the WSJ up until now.

So here's an idea along those lines for Mr. Murdoch: Hire Peter Rost to write for the WSJ Health Blog!

Is that a crazy idea or what? You tell me!

Should Murdock Hire Rost?
	Yes, why didn't I think of that?!
	No, are you nuts?
	Whatever...
	D'oh!

Personal note to Peter Rost: Do you see my entire plan now, Peter? First, I sow seeds of doubt regarding Brandweek's decision to hire you... Then, as that door closes, I open a new, bigger window for you with Murdoch! Take the leap! Brandweek will gladly let you out of your contract with them and you will be free to move on to the next stage of your plan to dominate the pharma blogosphere!