Big Pharma, "Real" People, Wonkers?

Ed Silverman over at Pharmalot is trying to draw out the anonymous creators of a Website called BigPharmaRealPeople and challenged the principal--one Scott McTavish (aka John Galt)--to a blogging duel:

"One other thing, Scott. Since you chose not to answer any of our messages directly, we are still curious to know more about your background and those of your ’staff.’ We would also like to know what, if any, sponsorship or backing you may have. If you really do enjoy an open debate about all the facts, more disclosure would be helpful - unless your site is merely an example of astroturfing dressed up as a social networking experiment." (See "Big Pharma, Real People, Bitter Web Site").

I can't imagine that this site gets any pharma sponsorship money. If it did, it could afford to be sure that its web site was compatible with every browser out there, especially FireFox. It's not.

When I access the site using FireFox 5.0 for Windows, it's a mess!

I first heard of BigPharmaRealPeople from the Pharma Fraud blog (see "Big Pharma: Real (Phony) People"), which believed it was a spoof site. Frankly, I don't think there's much about it to get worked up about.

However, I find it amusing that perhaps the site took an idea I had and ran with it. Namely, the idea that the stories of "real" people working at pharmaceutical companies are not getting out. I suggested, for example, that the J&J people over at JNJ BTW should let their rank and file people tell their stories on that blog (see, for example, "Advice to All Pharma PR Bloggers Out There").

Could it be that a rogue person within J&J read my blog and decided to do what I suggested? Could be (I think Pharma Fraud believes it could be). Except BigPharmaRealPeople takes it a step further and potty mouths critics of the pharmaceutical industry, choosing to focus on "negative attack ads" rather than positive personal stories, which makes it sound more like someone from Cafe Pharma is behind this.

BigPharmaRealPeople is NOTHING like the open and frank style of JNJ BTW, but is very SIMILAR to attack dog style of Drug Wonks, who are also big Ayn Rand fans. It wouldn't surprise me, therefore, it those people were behind BigPharmaRealPeople!