The Marketing and Dangers of Pfizer's Lipitor; A Four Part Series
Written by Cisco
Saturday, 23 February 2008
UPDATE: ON FEBRUARY 25TH, PFIZER ANNOUNCED THAT THEY HAVE CANCELLED THEIR LIPITOR AD CAMPAIGN FEATURING ROBERT JARVIK. WHILE WE APPRECIATE THEIR PROMPT RESPONSE TO OUR EXPOSE', WE WILL BE INTERESTED TO SEE WHETHER PFIZER WILL ATTEMPT FURTHER DECEPTION IN THE FUTURE LIPITOR AD CAMPAIGN ON WHICH THEY ARE ALREADY WORKING.
THE MARKETING AND DANGERS OF PFIZER'S LIPITOR; A FOUR PART SERIES
PART ONE: ROBERT JARVIK, PFIZER'S PIMP WITH A PUMP
Varjik had spent several weeks evaluating the neighborhood prior to renting this small office. There was a time when this particular neighborhood would have been called “blue-collar” or “working-class.” Now people tended to refer to the neighborhood as “old” and “worn out.” Bob knew that he had found the right place when he saw the marquee on the local VFW advertising a “Viet Nam Vets Night.” The fifty and sixty year old men that fought that war and their wives were his target demographic.
He was able to rent a store-front office in the area for just $600 per month. He spent just a few thousand dollars more to renovate the office so that it appeared to be that of a physician. There was a patient waiting area, a receptionist's desk, and three examination rooms. Then he added the finishing touches: lots of very old magazines in the waiting area and fancy diplomas and certificates framed and hanging on the walls. He hired a receptionist, and was very fortunate to find a Registered Nurse who was willing to work for $25 per hour. He purchased several new, crisp, white lab coats to wear while he was examining and counseling his “patients.”
He had a sign made for the front window which read “Free Health Screenings. No Appointment Necessary.” He fired up his LaserJet printer and printed handbills announcing the opening of the new free clinic and he paid a couple of high school kids to wander through the neighborhood and place the handbills on windshields and screen doors. In a matter of just a few days, there was a steady stream of patients walking through the front door.
The first patient was Bradley Crabtree, a fifty-seven year old Viet Nam veteran. The nurse escorted Mr. Crabtree to exam room one and quickly performed the free health screen, which consisted of completing a one page questionnaire on Mr. Crabtree's health history, taking his blood pressure, pulse, respiration rate, and temperature, and taking a small drop of blood from his finger tip. The blood was quickly analyzed for cholesterol levels, and then the nurse left the exam room.
As Mr. Crabtree awaited the doctor, he thought again about how fortunate he was to have this clinic open up right near his house. He had not been feeling well lately, but was not feeling so bad that he could take the time or make the effort to drive the four hours to the nearest VA hospital. He had heard some friends talking about cholesterol and wondered if he was feeling poorly because of his cholesterol levels. As he wondered this, “Dr.” Varjik, dressed in his crisp, white lab coat, walked into the examination room to provide the answer.
“Hello, Mr. Crabtree. I'm Dr. Varjik,” he said. Some benign conversation about the weather and the neighborhood followed and then Varjik came to the point.
“You appear to be healthy, Mr. Crabtree,” Varjik told his patient. “I am just a little concerned about your cholesterol level. I am recommending that you go on a daily regimen of Lipitor in order to lower it.”
“Oh,” said a somewhat confused Mr. Crabtree. He had expected more tests and a more thorough examination. “Don't you have to run any more tests?” he queried.
“Trust me, Mr. Crabtree. We determined all that we needed to know from the blood taken from your finger. You have an LDL level of 130 milligrams per deciliter, and you stated that you had a history of tobacco use. That puts you in a high risk category for coronary artery disease and so we feel that you should begin taking Lipitor immediately.”
Mr. Crabtree wasn't sure what “LDL” or “milligrams per deciliter” meant, but he was concerned by the words”high risk.” “But I haven't smoked for thirty-five years,” replied Crabtree. “The last cigarette that I had was the one that I crushed out on the tarmac just before boarding the plane to come home from Nam.”
“Yes, but research indicates that any historical use of tobacco puts you at risk for heart disease,” replied Varjik smoothly. He had not actually read any research papers that indicated such a risk, but was simply repeating something that his buddies at Pfizer had told him.
“Can't I just control the cholesterol through diet or exercise, Dr. Varjik?” asked Mr. Crabtree.
Bob Varjik maintained his professional outward demeanor, but he was smiling deep inside. He loved it when these people called him “doctor.” He had never actually received his license to practice medicine and was not a medical doctor at all. But he had received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, the University of Syracuse, so he felt that people should call him doctor. Besides, Varjik had done a great deal of research in the mechanics of the human hip joint and had developed an artificial hip that was used to replace osteoarthritic joints in older people. He was certain that he knew more about the physiology of the human hip than any of those doctors who actually had a license to practice medicine.
Those damn doctors were the ones that had put him into his current situation. There had been many reported failures of his artificial hip in patients who had the hip less than a year. Varjik was certain that the failures resulted from improper installation by the clueless orthopedic surgeons, but he ran out of money before he could remedy the situation. Now he was relegated to pimping Lipitor in order to make a buck.
“While it is possible, Mr. Crabtree, to control your cholesterol through diet and exercise, most or our patients tend to find that it is much easier just to take Lipitor on a daily basis.” replied Varjik. “I tell you what. I am going to have a prescription phoned in to the Walgreens down the street, and you can go and have it filled any time. Is that okay?”
“Well, sure. I'll think about it. Maybe it would be easier to take the Lipitor.”
Dr. Varjik dismissed his first patient with a “thanks for stopping by” and a “good luck” and went to his office where he called one of the real physicians that Pfizer has on staff, who in turn called the prescription for Bradley Crabtree into the Walgreens. Varjik went to the next exam room to greet his next patient, ever diligent in earning the $1.35 million that Pfizer had promised to him. If he worked really hard, he might just earn some of the incentives that Pfizer had promised....
The foregoing story is a work of fiction that has a true basis in reality. But the “doctor” in real life does not go to the trouble of opening a free clinic. Instead, the real Lipitor pimp enters the home of the television-viewing public every evening in the person of Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart. The behavior of Robert Jarvik is every bit as disingenuous as that of our fictional character, “Dr.” Bob Varjik.
Drew Carey holds an honorary doctorate from Cleveland State. I am yet to hear anybody refer to him as “Dr.” Carey. Tim Russert holds forty-three honorary doctorates, yet we do not hear anybody on the Sunday morning talk shows responding with “That's a very good question, Dr. Russert.” Now we come to the person of Robert Jarvik.
Much like Drew Carey, Tim Russert, and our fictional Bob Varjik, Robert Jarvik holds three honorary doctorates. He is not licensed to practice medicine. He is not a practicing physician and never has been. He has not once treated any patient for coronary artery disease. Pfizer, the maker of Lipitor, can technically refer to Jarvik as “Dr.” Robert Jarvik because of his honorary doctorates, but the use of the title in the television advertisements is clearly intended to deceive people into thinking that Jarvik is an actual physician.
In one of the television ads, Jarvik, much like our Bob Varjik character, wears a crisp, white lab coat. Again, Pfizer's objective is to deceive. People are accustomed to seeing their physician in just such a lab coat, and the sub-conscious assumption that Jarvik is a physician is made in the mind of many people.
Robert Jarvik's artificial heart has experienced a level of success that is inferior to the level of success experienced by the artificial hips of our fictional Varjik. The Jarvik 7, the first artificial heart developed by the pimp-extraordinaire, was supposed to be a permanent replacement for the human heart. Many of us remember the famous first patient, Barney Clark, mainly because when then President Ronald Reagan telephoned Mr. Clark to see how he was doing after his surgery, Mr. Clark promptly asked President Reagan where his Social Security check was. Barney Clark lasted 112 pain-and-complication-filled days on the artificial heart before succumbing.
There was never a successful implantation of the Jarvik 7. Yes, their were some lives prolonged by the heart, but at a combined cost of literally hundreds of millions of dollars and some would wonder whether a life should be prolonged with a mechanical heart if the quality of that life could be judged as, at best, miserable.
Jarvik has spent the past ten to fifteen years trying to raise money for his various efforts at creating another artificial heart, and as of the date of this writing, he has had minor success. He says that the Jarvik 2000 artificial heart has been implanted in one person for seven and a half years. I would not call that a raging success, and Jarvik's lack of success is probably why has turned to his new occupation of pimping Lipitor.
Pfizer is indeed paying Jarvik $1.35 million for pimping Lipitor, and apparently it is money that has been well-spent. Lipitor sales were $3.3 billion in the third quarter of 2007, an increase of fifteen percent over last year. That increase in sales would indicate that, as a conservative low-end estimate, at least 2 million additional people were convinced to begin taking Lipitor during a three month period last year. Jarvik's pimping skills are indeed amazing.
That brings us to our last point of analogy between our fictional Varjik and the all-too-real Jarvik. You will remember that Varjik's first patient, Mr. Crabtree, had inquired as to whether he could not lower his cholesterol through diet and exercise. You will recall that our Varjik admitted to the efficacy of diet and exercise in reducing cholesterol, but then offered that taking Lipitor would be easier.
This writer has absolutely no doubt that similar conversations are taking place in physician's offices all across the United States. It is moronic to believe that, during a three month period last year, doctors encountered an additional two million patients who absolutely could not deal with their elevated cholesterol numbers through diet and exercise. There is absolutely no doubt that Lipitor is being over-prescribed, and it is being over-prescribed because a TV pimp is telling people to “ask their doctor about it.”
Representative John Dingell (D-Michigan) has opened a congressional investigation into whether Jarvik should be allowed to sell Lipitor via these commercial advertisements. I applaud Mr. Dingell's actions and it is my sincere hope that the advertisements will be stopped and that Pfizer and their pimp will be subjected to large fines for violating the public trust. We will publish any news of progress by Mr. Dingell.
This is the first post of a four post series. The next posts will cover the adverse effects of Lipitor and the alternatives to Lipitor.
Like him or not, Jarvik did contribute to the field of medicine with his artificial heart. The success of his heart isn't measured in long term survival but the fact that an artificial organ could be transplanted and used to extend life. His heart and the willingness of both patients and doctors to risk their lives and careers served as the stepping stone to the LVAD equipment used today which serves as a bridge to transplantation.
... written by katie clary , March 22, 2008
My husband is suffering from the ill effects of Lipitor. He exhibits ALS like symptoms and has been referred to Duke University for further testing. No ONE WILL ADMIT LIPITOR COULD BE A FACTOR! This is absolutely crazy. I thought we could rely on the FDA.
... written by Moy Paterson , April 21, 2008
My husband, a previously fit and healthy man, has had his life and memory partially destroyed by a year's force-feeding of Lipitor. We stopped the drug after our doctor attempted to switch him to Crestor (without any prior discussion!)Here in the UK doctors are rewarded financially for such prescribing (Google 'QOF Points'), which does not of course place concern for their patients as their top priority. As with katie clary's post above, few doctors here will admit the toxicity of statins, and those who do so are consistently ridiculed by their colleagues. We have been harmed beyond measure by the current medical model in which we placed our trust and I am surprised that doctors, whether ignorant or culpable, are not being prosecuted by the European Courts. For others 'out there' who are desperately seeking answers, I would recommend the published writings of Uffe Ravnkov... (My thanks to jaajoe for providing information.)
how dare you insult a man like dr. jarvik, yes, a doctor! This man has done nothing wrong, in the eyes of men or God Himself! Take this on your own shoulders, Ill pray for you! Lisa, West Covina, CA.
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