Jarvik karma.

May the phenomenon of metaphysical blow-back that has whisked Dr. (non-practicing-non-rowing) Jarvik out of our lives likewise propel Eli Lilly and Co. and their heart-rending and brilliantly scored Cymbalta TV commercials into deserved oblivion. If traffic on this Website is any measure, people are still captured and intrigued -- haunted, even -- by the quasi-classical music of these antidepressant pitches. All the direct-to-user TV advertising for prescription remedies has so muddied the practice of medicine that formerly important, potent, risk-managed drugs are now sold like Preparation H. All those mumbled voice-over warnings about side effects, including really serious, life threatening ones -- even four hour erections (you don't want to know how they fix that) -- go right past us and we run to our docs asking for them. We take responsibility for our own care, now don't we. So we have only ourselves to blame. And now that studies are saying antidpressants, maybe, work no better than sugar pills against depression, hell, we might as well be swigging Lydia E. Pinkham's. It's at least got an alcoholic side effect to make up for the taste. And has all this made us trust the FDA more? I saw a commercial that used "...and it's FDA approved..." like it was a recommendation. I'd think twice about that. Yes, bring on the karma. This is the way America takes care of problems of misrepresentation and just plain BS. Very Republican. Expose the hype and let the marketplace decide.

Afterthought on Jarvik

I've been rethinking. They say Robert Jarvik's contract to do Lipitor commercials was two years, and the pay: $1.35 million. Consider, please: that's about $650K a year, for quite a few quite complex film camera shoots, on location in many parts of the country -- he was in attendance at that lake, though he didn't row. Plus all the rest of the accompanying folderol involved in being a celebrity spokesman.

It must have been a fairly intense part-time job. For a guy who's running his own company, that's quite a commitment. He must have imagined the exposure would be worth millions more to him in the development of his company, on the worldwide money markets. So, for all this, he put his medical-health reputation -- which even he must have known was not close to that of, say Michael DeBakey -- on the line. However he must have looked at it, he stood to win big, and couldn't lose. Sadly, I suspect he still thinks so.

So long, Dr. Jarvik

It only took America two years and millions of advertising "impressions" to end Pfizer's "Jarvik" Lipitor campaign. But we got around to it. Is this a great country or what? Time sums it up here.

MORE HEAT ON JARVIK AND PFIZER

In the New York Times today, a roundup of the latest rumblings in Congress and the medical profession over Robert Jarvik's role as spokesperson for Pfizer's Lipitor. I'm pleased to note that the Times has been hitting dehype posts for leads lately.

Gut check.

First of the year. Seems like a good time to consider what this site's about. Hype is not going away. The question: how to live a relatively sane, sensible life when you're surrounded by it. I think most of us succeed, actually. The early start to our Presidential season actually makes me feel pretty good. Politics don't seem to be nauseating me so much. I think we're a little more awake. Surely, the Republican machine doesn't seem so strident this year. That's smart of them. Even the most jaded of them seem to realize they can't do things the same way as before and expect to command the loyal. Likewise the Democrats. The presence of Obama seems to have changed the tone of their primary campaign. The media people are trying to whip up some fear and loathing, but I think the Clinton-Obama War story is a non-starter. I think they're lobbing macaroons at each other and the voters aren't paying attention to that stuff. I think both parties have learned something from the past six and a half years (Year One being 2001), and I hope the press and TV media do too, eventually. Me, I've slacked off in recent times on this site, though a lot of you come around looking for info on Cymbalta and Dr. Jarvik. Mostly, you're curious, and not much interested in my chronic outrage at drug advertising. It has helped ruin our health care system, but it isn't the only thing. We've put up with it. We share a major part of the blame. Even with all the hooha about all the issues and politics, only about half of us vote. No amount of hype has gotten the rest of us participating in cleaning up our various messes. How about checking your gut. If you spend one minute a year wondering how some of this stuff'll get fixed, shut up. Unless you at least know what's going on, and cast a vote. Thanks for dropping by.

The Jarvik plot thickens.

Here's a link to ABC's Jarvik-Lipitor story, complete with video from Good Morning America, on which Robert Jarvik, Pfizer's sorta-doc spokesman for its anti-cholesterol drug, showed up and submitted to a gentle thrashing from Diane Sawyer last week. How many years has it taken for somebody in Congress, or anywhere, to get itchy enough with the idea of an apparent MD endorsing a particular drug on TV? Of course, the story behind the story is that Lipitor is slipping; has been since Zocor went generic, as the New York Times reported last November. See, the Zocor generic is much cheaper than Lipitor, which has its patent until 2010, and insurance companies and docs are switching patients to the cheaper drug, which is, by all accounts, just as effective. One little fact reintroduced in all this coverage: only the U.S. and New Zealand allow direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising. We really need this debate, seriously conducted: is free enterprise always good for our health?

UPDATE 1949 hours 012208: Required reading: a nytimes.com health blog fills us in on the recent Zetia flap. Link.

FINALLY, CONGRESS LOOKS AT JARVIK AND PFIZER

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has ordered Pfizer to cough up all data on how much they've paid Robert Jarvik, star of their Lipitor campaign for, oh, years, now. Could we finally be heading for a little self-examination here? Our commercial culture has stood there and let pharmaceutical companies sell prescription drugs like sneakers and beer for, what, twenty years? Go see the House's letter to Pfizer at Slate.com.

LIGHTEN UP, DAVE.

I think I've been taking my mission too seriously. I'm gonna have more fun. Why am I writing this? Because I looked at one of the Google searches you people use to look up information on the Cymbalta TV campaign and its insidious music. Here it is.

When I read what the bloggers are saying about Cymbalta's music, and other commercials, like the Abe Lincoln and beaver spot for Rozerem, I feel a lot better about how gullible people who use the Web are not. Like this one, for example.

I'm getting mostly hits from people looking up these and other pharma commercials. Dr. Jarvik's Lipitor campaign is probably the number two search I see on my hit counter. Keep looking. Keep talking about it. When everybody realizes drug ads don't make drugs work better, maybe they won't sell drugs either.

A SMALL REVISION. THANKS, PFIZER.

I heard that. I heard the voice on a Lipitor TV commercial say it: "...Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik Artificial Heart..." Those spots used to call Jarvik the "inventor of the artificial heart." Which many believe is not true, as my readers and I have reported before. I looked at the Lipitor site. They haven't changed the claim there. I'll be watching. You, too?

LIPITOR, MOVIE MAGIC, DR. JARVIK AND HIS BODY DOUBLE, AND THE COMING M.D. REVOLT.

Last week I followed a Google search link that brought one of you to my post on Lipitor's TV commercial starring Dr. Robert Jarvik, the heart pump inventor, who is apparently the first doctor to perform a paid endorsement for a prescription drug.

Not only did I learn that the spot was filmed on Washington state's Lake Crescent, on the Olympic Peninsula, but that a member of Seattle's Lake Washington Rowing Club was hired through a local casting agency to be the good doctor's body double for the heavy rowing of the commercial shoot. Because, though Robert Jarvik may be a cardiologist and an inventor, he apparently isn't a rower. You can see the talent agency's photos and chatter about the production on their site, and the body double's account in the LWRC's April newsletter. (Here's the auto-download link for the PDF--be warned: it's a big file.)

Just another day at the office for the advertising and commercial production industries--perfectly normal use of paid endorsement, state-of-the-art persuasion techniques and movie magic, in the service of perfectly legal marketing business. But, is it in your best interest to accept the resulting "impression" as health education?

Now, finally, medical professionals are beginning to call out the pharmas and the government on drug ads.

Lipitor, says Northwestern University medical ethicist Katie Watson, is one of the most expensive of the cholesterol-lowering drugs, intended for people who need high-dose treatment. There are many such drugs, and, now, much cheaper generic versions are on their way. But Pfizer, Lipitor's maker, is spending big on TV, in newspapers and magazines, and, presumably, in fees to Dr. Jarvik, to keep Lipitor the bestseller in the field, hoping you and the docs will overlook the fact that there's no evidence it's more effective than any other. Listen to Ms. Watson's entire June 28 NPR commentary on the subject.

The best news I've heard lately is the American Medical Association's new policy on direct-to-consumer drug advertising--read about it in the Orange County Register --the AMA's up to here with it. Maybe we'll hear more from the silent, drug-rep-beleaguered medicos.

But, what about you? What does Robert Jarvik rowing a shell on a mountain lake, or the Cymbalta "Depression Hurts" music, have to do with getting the safest, most effective, most cost effective treatment for what ails you? Shouldn't you be a little more skeptical? It's not education; it's Twenty-First Century sales pitching applied to the practice of medicine. Recognize drug advertising for what it is--selective, manipulative persuasion: hype. Talk sense to yourself--get non-commercial information, then ask your doctor for an uncoerced, scientifically supported, common sense judgment about what's right for you.

Oh, by the way...we may have an answer to the Cymbalta music question. See here.

[Past posts: Jarvik; Cymbalta.]

Robert Jarvik pitches LIpitor on TV?

UPDATE: 2/26/08: Yesterday, 2/25/08, Pfizer announced it was cancelling the two-year multimillion dollar advertising campaign featuring Robert Jarvik. Thanks for all your interest in my posts on this subject over the last two years. To get a fine wrapup of this story, go to Time.com.

What ever happened to Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik 7 artificial heart? I'd have gone years more without knowing, if it hadn't been for the new Lipitor commercials.

Dr. Jarvik appears in the new one--rowing a kayak over pristine waters, perhaps in Alaska. He also presents the commercial's message on the dangers of high cholesterol, and recommends, of course, that you ask your doctor if Lipitor is right for you. [CORRECTION: Not a "kayak," a rowing scull. Thanks to J. Sprouse for the catch. See Comments. DN]

Why did Pfizer choose Jarvik as Lipitor spokesperson (Hmm, Pfizer again)? Other than the obvious cardiac connection, there's no sign. He's known for last-chance heart technology. Lipitor is supposed to help keep heart disease from getting that far.

So, are Jarvik's pals at Pfizer giving him a profile-raising at a time when his company, headquartered in that noted mecca of medical research, Manhattan, nears the public investment entry level? Is Pfizer interested in buying his company? Was putting him on TV Pfizer's president's wife's idea? Stranger things have happened. What have you heard? Feel free to comment, and let's keep our eyes on this one.