The Great Ad Controversy

DH takes Lipitor--he has genetically high cholesterol that's unaffected by his diet--and we've been following the controversy about their ads as a result.

You know the ads--they feature Dr. Robert Jarvik, who invented the first artificial heart, talking about how he's dedicated his life to heart health because his father had a heart attack when he was a child. They show him rowing and running with his son and endorsing the drug as being great for heart health.

But the ads are so potentially misleading that a Congressional committee is investigating them, trying to decide if the pharma company should be prosecuted for false advertising.

For starters, Jarvik is a researcher and inventor, not a cardiologist. He does hold a medical degree but has never been licensed to practice medicine. Never completed an internship or residency, never sat for the board exams. He did invent the artificial heart, but he's also invented a lot of medical devices that have nothing to do with the heart, and he has no specialized training in cardiology.

And then there's the video. Jarvik doesn't row. That's a body double, my friends. And he doesn't run either. From all indications, he's a couch potato. A slug. He just doesn't eat much.

He also got paid for those ads. A lot--$1.3 million over two years. He's done no independent research about Lipitor, has never worked for the company, basically knows nothing about it other than what he's been told.

The thing is, the Lipitor ads have been incredibly successful, particularly among elderly Americans. They all want Lipitor. They believe, according to surveys, that Jarvik is a prominent cardiologist and that he truly believes in this drug.

I can tell you how vulnerable older people are. My in-laws have become amazingly trusting and easily confused in the last five years. They're smart people, but they'll had over their credit cards to just about anyone who asks for them. They give out information over the phone despite our repeated lectures and please not to. Wouldn't have happened ten years ago, but they're older and softer and they've lost a step or two.

Lipitor is a great drug for people who need it, says my husband's doctor. But the vast majority of people with high cholesterol need to alter their lifestyles. Cut the fat, increase the activity. It is a drug and like any drug, it has side effects. And quite simply, drugs aren't great to take over long periods of time if you don't truly need them.

I get that it's advertising. I totally understand that people shouldn't go running out for medications just because they saw one on TV. But the fact is that many, many people are undereducated or older, and they do believe what they see on television, and they go running to their doctors for the meds. And doctors are rushed and pressured and living in a godawful existence of wanting to help people vs. wanting to be paid (by HMOs for the most part) and it's sometimes easier to just give people the meds and hope they get healthier. It's not right and it's not justified, but that's the way the world works.

I have a real problem with these ads. I'm an educated person and I believed Jarvik was a cardiologist from their content (g'head...call me stupid). I don't take the drug or want the drug, and I feel misled. I'm angry on behalf of all the other people who were duped and all the doctors who faced pressure because of the dupage, and all the money that's gone to Pfizer because of it.

There are things in the world that are just wrong, despite circumstances and despite what "should be". This is one of them. The ads need to be pulled and both Pfizer and Jarvik need a hand-slapping.