Site Presented By
Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
Under the guise of "public service," pharmaceutical companies are quietly paying stars to solicit new customers on TV talk shows with tales of personal suffering and blessed relief.
Jul 11, 2002 | Kathleen Turner was on television recently talking about her pain and suffering. "The damage that I have, the damage I'll always have could have been prevented," the actress told "Good Morning, America" host Diane Sawyer on Feb. 19. Sawyer was sympathetic. Turner, she knew from a previous interview, had been battling rheumatoid arthritis for over a year now.
"You're still in pain?" Sawyer asked.
"Well," Turner responded, "as they say: only when you walk."
Turner then went on to mention a Web site, www.ra-access.com, where fellow sufferers could get help. Sawyer eagerly repeated the site's address in case viewers missed it.
All of this would have been your standard bit of early-morning show chitchat if Turner had not been paid by two drug companies to speak out about her illness. "She gets a fee," confirms Robin Shapiro, a spokeswoman for Immunex, a bio-pharmaceutical company, which along with Wyeth, funded a media campaign for which Turner was hired to do a number of TV and print interviews.
The two companies jointly manufacture an arthritis drug called Enbrel. They also happen to operate the Web site that Turner and Sawyer plugged as so helpful to arthritis sufferers. The site is a marketing tool for Immunex and Wyeth. Visitors are asked to supply personal information, which, according to Shapiro, is used to send them promotional materials on Enbrel, a drug competing with several others in a multibillion-dollar market for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
These sorts of below-the-radar media campaigns, which blur the line between drug advertising and public service efforts, are now rampant. And increasingly crucial to the success of these carefully orchestrated blitzes are celebrities willing to pour out their hearts about how they or a close relative have struggled with a particular illness -- for a price. In the last few years gymnast Bart Connor, Olympic figure skater Dorothy Hamill, jockey Julie Krone, former NFL coach Bill Parcells, San Francisco 49er legend Joe Montana, actors Rita Moreno, Bob Uecker and Debbie Reynolds have participated in this drill for various drug companies. "West Wing" star Rob Lowe recently embarked on a drug-company sponsored awareness campaign for a cancer-related illness called febrile neutropenia that will reportedly net him $1 million.
"It's become a hugely gray area as to where the stars' charitableness begins and where their financial interests begin," says Barry Greenberg, a Hollywood talent agent whose firm, Celebrity Connection, specializes in recruiting stars for the drug companies. "Maybe Katie Couric wasn't being paid to have a hose shoved up her ass, but the rest of the stars, they're getting something."
In 1997, under growing pressure from pharmaceutical companies, the Food and Drug Administration relaxed its regulations on television advertising for prescription drugs. The industry promptly went on a multibillion-dollar spending spree, bombarding the airwaves with commercials for their products. Having seen the fundraising successes of nonprofit organizations and foundations linked to specific illnesses that used celebrities to raise awareness about health issues, pharmaceutical flacks made immediate efforts to tap into this star power. Joan Lunden was hired to hawk the asthma drug Claritin in 1998. Bob Dole flacked for Viagra in 1999.
These first ads were like most others that featured celebrity endorsements: The star's connection to the company was obvious; the pitch was straightforward promotion. But, as one marketer for the drug industry puts it, "There was a backlash." It occurred to consumers and advocacy groups that it could be dangerous for well-trusted public figures to be recommending drugs with serious side effects. In some cases, the celebrities with transparent links to drug companies saw their reputations tarnished or skewered. Suddenly they were irresponsible -- or a joke.
So the drug companies tried a different tack -- celebrity-driven public awareness campaigns that completely obscure the financial relationship between the star and the drug company, while allowing both parties to avoid any talk of side effects or potential problems with the drug. With all hints of drugs and money hidden from view, celebrities were again willing to sign up, taking fees as high as $1 million to do a raft of television and newspaper interviews in which they speak about a particular illness and urge sufferers to seek treatment.
