Cafe Pharma's Sarah Palmer Tames Boogalou Shrimp

Occasionally, I visit the Cafe Pharma discussion boards to see what's going on. But, frankly, after a nasty run-in with a few anonymous posters there -- see "Banned from CafePharma!" -- I haven't visited too often or dared to post anything under my own name.

Since then, I have exchanged a few friendly emails back and forth with Sarah Palmer who is the administrator of the site. Zookeeper or Animal Tamer may be more appropriate titles.

Last month, Sarah apparently banned a Cafe Pharma member who went under the pseudonym "Boogalou Shrimp." As I noted in a post made by Jane Chin on her Pharma Rep Clinic blog, "In his/her online profile, Boogalou Shrimp says his/her interests are 'Leg humping.' Since joining on 11 September 2006, Boogalou Shrimp has made 3,212 posts to CafePharma; an average of more than one post per hour, 24/7."

Boogalou Shrimp tried to win over people with posts like this: "Is John Mack an asshat or a fagbot? I can't decide?"

But Boogalou wouldn't be banned for something so innane as that. Yet, Sarah won't say why this person was banned. The following Cafe Pharma thread documents the banning:

I'll ask the question everyone wants to know
Why was Boogalou Shrimp banned?
--medrep1850

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What's the deal. Sarah? You provided a damning case against Clem, the Black genocide agonist. The litany of Clem's rantings that you posted put his apologists in their place, thus shutting them up.

Now the Shrimp's been banned.

Let's see "your evidence" that you have compiled on Shrimp.
--thehairyfiddler

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Sorry, but we cannot always divulge the reasons why posters are banned. There is no single reason in this case. The "final straw" had nothing to do with anything on the Political Discussions board. I'm sure he knows very well why he was banned. --Sarah Palmer

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But certainly you can cite generalities for your decision, right? What "posting policy" did he violate? You don't have to be specific, here.

In his defense, he did a damn good job of fending off the calvary of white racists that stink up the political boards on a daily basis.

"The "final straw" had nothing to do with anything on the Political Discussions board."

Again, can't you share generalities?

"I'm sure he knows very well why he was banned."

Did he threaten to kill someone? I never saw a pattern of rule breaking with him. Maybe he melted down after having a few too many. Shit happens, ya know.
--thehairyfiddler

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Sarah you lost all my respect. You must be kidding me...can't give the reason? I'm also black like shrimp and am consistently attacked on your site by racist. Why don't you do something about that?...or did you decide it's better to ban the black guy so the bigot's don't have a target? The latter is the only plausible reason I can think of and that's why you won't give a reason. You're just as bad as the bigots!
--Anonymous

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Whatever. It's so funny...I get accused of being a flaming liberal by some, a bigot by others. Some have said I am black, and now I have a cold blue eye I'm just running a site with very busy message boards, where we have to make many daily decisions on how to make the boards the most usable for our visitors. I can assure you this - Boogalou Shrimp was not banned because of his race, or even because of anything having to do with racial/political discussions, race baiting, etc. You of course may believe as you want to believe, but don't expect me to answer your continued ranting when you have already been given your answer several times. --Sarah

See what I mean about "zookeeper" or "animal tamer" being more accurate descriptions of Sarah's job?

There are over 14,000 registered Cafe Pharma members, of which as many as 1,100 may be online at the same time. The site currently hosts nearly 150,000 threads and over 1.5 million posts!

Whatever we call Sarah's job, I don't envy her. Sarah, I am sorry I argued with you in the past about your administrative decisions. Keep up the good work and ban away!

PhRMA Intern Returns!

Yes, it's PhRMA Intern! Strange visitor from an Ivy League school who came to PhRMA with powers and ability far beyond those of Ken Johnson.

PhRMA Intern! Who can change the course of mighty news stories, bend the truth at will, and who disguised as Emily Jameson (no relation to Jenna Jameson), mild-mannered intern for a great pharmaceutical trade association, fights a never ending battle for believability, justice for pharmaceutical companies, and the PhRMA way!

Check out: The Adventure of PhRMA Intern and the Hollywood Mogul! An Offer that Cannot be Refused!

'Round the Sphere: SiCKO Spies, Panama Hats, Blog Burnout

Peter Rost -- one of the biggest stars in the Pharma Blogosphere firmament -- promises to make panama hats popular again! See his post here.

It appears, however, that these hats are already popular amongst Chippendale male dancers -- that's one shown on the left (not Dr. Rost!).

The issue of panama hats arose after Rost showed up last week in sunglasses and a panama hat for a friendly lunch with Jim Edwards of BrandweekNRX. They met at a trendy Italian restaurant in Milburn, NJ, if such a thing is possible (not that I have anything against NJ; some of my best friends live and fish in NJ; please, no comments accusing me of being an anti-Jerseyite!).

Bigger news came out of that meeting than what kind of hat men should wear. It appears that I soon won't have Jim to kick around anymore on the issue of mandatory Gardasil inoculations -- a topic we tussled over some time ago.

Jim announced he is leaving Brandweek in August to become a Knight Bagehot fellow at Columbia. This "sweet deal" includes full tuition and a living stipend of $50,000.

Good luck Jim!

On another front, Derek Lowe, an Arkansan by birth and blogger extraordinaire at In the Pipeline, announced that he will be moving to Boston for a new job! Derek would like to hear from readers with personal experience with the towns, schools (and roads!) of that part of Massachusetts.

It's obvious, although not mentioned by Derek, that after June, when he starts his new job, he may have little time to devote to blogging. And thus another shining star in the Pharma Blogosphere may dim. Good luck to Derek as well!

We Lose 40% of the Top-Rated Bloggers!
Thus 2 of the 5 "top rated" blogs in the Pharma Blogosphere, which includes In the Pipeline, Pharmalot, BrandweekNRX, PharmaGossip, and Pharma Marketing Blog (see "Survey Finds Blogs Critical of Drug Industry Are Most Credible"), will soon fade to black.

So, within the last 6 months we saw an explosion of new entrants into the Pharma Blogosphere and now somewhat of a collapse.

That's the way things are.

SiCKO PhRMA Spygate!
Meanwhile, life -- such as it is -- in the Pharma Blogosphere trundles on.

We've seen "Buckets of Cash" ZubeGate and AstraZeneca's Cupcake Capers. Now a new controversy is brewing involving Michael Moore's movie SiCKO, PhRMA, and a mysterious movie mogul "friend" of PhRMA's executive VP.

I first reported on this in Pharma Marketing Blog: "PhRMA Sent SiCKO Spy to Cannes".

Subsequent to that, Ed Silverman at Pharmalot received a phone call from Ken Johnson -- the PhRMA VP in question -- who claimed that a hollywood "friend" just happened to be in Cannes at the opening of SiCKO and gave Ken "some pretty good blow...", err, I mean "blow-by-blow" (see "PhRMA: We Didn’t Send A Spy To Cannes!").

What Ken failed to mention, however, was the role played by a certain PhRMA Intern in soliciting this favor from a Hollywood movie mogul -- see tomorrow's post to Pharma Marketing Blog for the full story of this exciting Spy-vs-SiCKO sitcom!

BTW, you can read a review of SiCKO by the only pharma blogger to actually see the entire movie here!

John Mack Finally Gets His SiCKO Screening: You Can Too!

While the pharmaceutical industry is part of Michael Moore's -- and many other people's -- "Axis of Evil" consisting of pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and insurance companies, he does cut the industry some slack in his new movie "SiCKO," which I saw yesterday at a special screening in New York City. Pharma is merely a "necessary evil," whereas insurance companies are just not necessary at all -- at least the for-profit insurance industry.

For more of my review of the movie SiCKO, see "SiCKO is Boffo but Not Anti-Pharmaco, per se".

For my fellow bloggers in the Pharma Blogosphere who haven't seen the movie yet, but wish to do so, I suggest they contact Sara Finmann Serlen (in NYC) at 646-862-3812, sara.serlen@weinsteinco.com and ask her for an invite to the one of the next screening in NY, which I believe is June 11 and June15. If you are locate elsewhere, ask her who to call for a screening near you.

If you read my review, you'll see why I believe that pharma bloggers may not be high priority PR targets for the producers. But, hey, it's worth a shot.