DrugWanks Pull Post

Soon after I posted my diatribe against DrugWonks and their cowardly bullying tactics, Insider weighed in with the image at the left and declared that he will refer to them as "DrugWanks" from now on!

For us non-Brits, here's the Wikipedia 411 on "wanker":

Wanker is a pejorative term of British origin, common in Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and gaining usage in Canada and the United States. It initially referred to "one who masturbates" but has since become a general insult. It is synonymous with tosser, toss-pot and tossing it off (commonly meaning wasting time - usually when at work). In parts of the UK the word 'tosser' and it's other forms have become so widespread that it isn't generally regarded as a swear word and is socially acceptable in general conversation.

I think I'll stick with the pejorative, please.

Insider also pointed out the poor spelling ability of these wankers:

By the way guys..... if you are going to wank over Big Pharma's offerings, try and get the spelling right.

It's Acomplia........ with one "c"!

If only that were the worst case!

Maybe it was the bad spelling, or maybe someone higher up in the PR food chain gave Wanker Goldberg a call, I don't know. What I do know is that you will no longer find the offending "wanker rant" entitled "What an Overweight Director Who Didn't Give His Own Employees Health Insurance Didn't Tell Us About US Health Care" on the DrugWanks site unless you specifically know what URL to paste into your browser (click here) and that might not be working much longer! If you go to the main page directly, you won't find the post!

Goldberg's post not only criticised Michael Moore, who is probably laughing all the way to the bank over it, but Goldberg -- coward that he is -- bad-mouthed Jim Edwards (see my post about that here).

So, from now on, I will follow Insider's lead and refer to these PR Wonks as DrugWanks and they shall be banned forever to the Outer Sphere of the Pharma Blogosphere!



BTW, this is the DrugWanks post in its entirety, just case the link above no longer works (click on the image to enlarge it and read):

Civility on CafePharma: Oxymoronic Wishhful Thinking

On Pharma has taken on CafePharma, calling for "a little civility" (see "How About a Little Civility, On-Line and Off? Thoughts on Cafe Pharma and Blogger Kathy Sierra’s Call for a Code of Conduct").

To respond to this call for a code of conduct, I decided that a point-counterpoint approach would be entertaining if not enlightening. I will take the point whereas a colleague -- let's call him/her "anonymous" -- will handle the counterpoint.

Point (John Mack): Forgive me for saying so, Ms. Shanley (who I assume wrote the On Pharma post), but a call for civility on CafePharma is a bit oxymoronic, wouldn't you say? It would be in the realm of other famous oxymorons like "military intelligence" and "ethical pharmaceuticals."

Please don't take my criticisms personally; I really enjoy your blog and urge everyone to read it, although I note that no one has bothered to comment on your post or any other post on your blog that I can see. Not that that's a bad thing! But you are free to throw rocks at CafePharma because you don't live in a glass house like it does. What I mean to say -- and forgive me for being so blunt and please realize that this is "tough love" from a friend -- you are not saying anything that your readers seem to care strongly about. Consequently, you don't have to put up with any nasty, heat-of-the-moment comments. A code of conduct, therefore, would be easy for you to implement, but would be impossible for CafePharma, which has over 14,000 over-sexed registered users and gazillions of posts! Again, forgive me for being so critical. I think you are a wonderful person.

Counterpoint (anonymous): The only word that can accurately describe you is inept. Are you kidding me? Stick your ethics up your ass. Listen up, you skeevy retard: You should have clean hands before you start spewing moral turpitude...Typing fagbot on an internet forum is not the same thing as screaming it out while waiting at the counter for my BK Broiler. You remain an idiot! Selfish egotistical asshole. If you are so interested in doing the right thing why don't you ... get into a circle jerk?

["anonymous" quotes were abstracted from several actual CafePharma posts.]

Pfizer Rep Bill of Rights Vetoed???!

No sooner than Peter Rost and I give the Pfizer Rep Bill of Rights Blog a high five, then it mysteriously disappears. You get "(no profile data)" if you click on the link http://blog.360.yahoo.com/billofrights2007

FALSE ALARM! IT'S BACK.

Perhaps it Yahoo! with which I have a bone to pick.

I think Yahoo! is falling apart.

For months it has been trying to get me to sign up in its Searcgh Marketing program as an advertising site. I tried it for a few days on my Pharma Marketing Network Forums Site and all I got were ads for cell phones!

If I wanted that, all I need to do is let any yahoo submit unmoderated posts to my Forums!

But back to Fizer Rep Bill of Rights. Anyone know what happened? John S, are you there?

eDrug Search Hijacked by Sleazy Link Farm

Just days after announcing the official launch of the eDrugSearch.com Web site, we find that visitors ar redirected to a "link farm" that panders to online Canadian drug sources.

This is disturbing for two reasons: (1) the site may have been hijacked or, worse, taken down by government authorities, and (2) eDrugSearch.com promised to "enable consumers to quickly access safe, affordable prescription medications through an easy-to-use search engine," but now all bets are off and the site's reputation suffers every day that visitors to the site are hijacked by the link farm, which obviously doesn't vett the sites it links out to.

I have emailed Cary Byrd, the president and founder of eDrugSearch.com, to get more information.

As you may know, I plan to interview Cary in an upcoming podcast ironically titled "Can You Find Reputable Canadian Drugs Online?"

Maybe the answer is "No!"

Did the CIA Shut Down Question Authority?

Today, when I try to access the Question Authority Blog at it's standard URL (http://peterrost.blogspot.com/), I get this;

And then I am redirected to what looks like a secure CIA server: https://www.cia.gov/cia/notices.html#sec

However, this generates a "Server Not Found" error message.

What's going on?

Has another blog in the Pharma Blogosphere been shut down or hacked?

Is the CIA involved?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Pharma Watch Author Outed?

Anonymous said...

"I'm speculating that Pharmawatch's latest post attracted the attention of legal departments. Hope he realises he has supporters, and that help is available should that be the case."

I must have missed that post, but here's a synopsis posted to PharmaGossip (see "Hurrah! - Pharma Watch is back"):

"Mike comments on the blood drugs: Epogen, Procrit and Aranesp and their recent issues raised in The Lancet."

"He notes:

Their editorial is quite restrained, but reading between the lines it is quite clear that the continued unsafe use of these drugs and these unethical trials are being driven by "commercial reasons".

The authors also mention that when another renal expert tried to highlight this appalling situation in an editorial accompanying one of the earlier trials showing adverse effects, it was rejected by the New England Journal of Medicine and eventually ended up in the Wall Street Journal of all places.

Shame on the NEJM (but after the Vioxx fiasco this is hardly surprise).

Legally, how do you shut down a blog for saying something as innocuous as that?

What I think is that "Michael Lascelles" (an alias), author of Pharma Watch, has been outed! And he is being shut down by his employers.

I had a correspondence with "Mike" way back in June 2005 before the Big Bang launched the Pharma Blogosphere as we know it today. Here's what he had to say about his blog and what motivates him: (see "Pharma BloggoSphere Update"):

"Why do I do it? I'm just doing it to let of a bit of steam about what I see happening to medicine under the increasing influence of pharmaceutical companies.

"I'm a pharmacologist and work in an institution that has links with several pharma companies. Over the last decade I've seen us becoming increasingly reliant on pharma funding and our managers have become increasingly nervous about what we say and do in relation to pharma companies. Therefore my blog, under a pseudonym, is a way of saying what I can’t say in public. If I blogged under my own name I’d be in a very difficult situation, to say the least.

"Most of my material comes from what I read in the local papers or what I find when surfing the net. As part of my work I have to keep up with a lot of medical journals, and there is more and more commentary in them too. I also get a lot of feedback on the blog now, which gives me leads and stuff to follow up. The blog also acts as a way of passing on what a lot of my friends and colleagues are saying, and the unease they are feeling about the influence of pharma companies.

“Unlike the more comprehensive and well written blogs like Pharma Marketing Blog, mine makes no attempt to be fair, accurate or reasonable. I'm not a journalist and don't have time to get all my facts right or follow things up. I’m just writing my own point of view, take it or leave it.

"My blog is not 'balanced' because I don't think you can be on this. I see it as my little [unpaid, part time] voice against a huge marketing and propaganda juggernaut that can afford to pay PR companies to work full time on their lavish campaigns, and an army of heavy duty lobbyists to sweet talk the politicians."

Mike may now be in the "very difficult position" he envisioned if his real identity was known. Although I agree with Anonymous, who said "Hope he realises he has supporters, and that help is available should that be the case," I'm afraid we might never hear from Pharma Watch again!