Lipitor ad lands Pfizer in hot water

[Celebration]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/feb/08/pfizer.pharmaceuticals

The world's biggest drugs company, Pfizer, is in hot water over a series of television commercials for its blockbuster anti-cholesterol drug, Lipitor.

In the ads, Lipitor is endorsed by the well-known American scientist Robert Jarvik – who invented the artificial heart. Wearing a white coat, Jarvik tells viewers that Lipitor can lower "bad" types of cholesterol by between 39% and 60%.

"I'm glad I take Lipitor, as a doctor and as a dad," he says, before a final shot shows him rowing in healthy, muscular fashion across a sunkissed mountain lake.

A few problems have surfaced with this patter. To begin with, Jarvik, 61, isn't qualified to practice medicine. He admitted this week that he wasn't actually taking Lipitor at the time the ads were shot – and finally, he doesn't know one end of a boat from another so the ad agency used a stunt double with an impressive late middle-age physique.

"He's about as much an outdoorsman as Woody Allen," a colleague, Dr O H Frazier of the Texas Heart Institute, told the New York Times. "He can't row."

I'm a bit amused by this.

[jgraz]

1. There's also the troubling little detail that Lipitor doesn't actually work

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/31380.php

[napi21]

2. You're wrong. It does work. My husband has been taking it for

over 12 years.

I also don't understand why people are having a problem with THIS AD. There are lots of well known people who make ads and most likely don't use the product.

[sandnsea]

3. I have no problem with Lipitor

Me and my husband both take statins, although we can't afford Lipitor. But I do have a problem with the ad because I actually respected this particular doctor a great deal and never dreamed he would get on the television and lie. It's one thing to have someone promote a product, but if they say they use it, then they should use it. Especially medicine.

[Celebration]

4. but how many of them lie?

Seriously, the row boat thing is just plain funny. Except to the extent that I have a problem with all pharma ads on television, I don't have a problem with it. It is ridiculous of course and I am glad it is being exposed. This is mere puffery, though, to be expected in marketing.

But a lie is a lie. When a well known person uses his personal identity to push a product, and lies about taking it, this is just a huge problem to me. Keep in mind that he was not an actor in this.

Anyone who doesn't understand this is, well, like the high school student that cheats on exams, like the people at Comcast that try to get away with double billing, etc. Cheating and lying are way too accepted in our society ("oh, everyone does it").

Pfizer went way over the top with this.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Never cared for the ad, will never take any such chemical to

accomplish what stanols, sterols, antioxidants and other sundry items can along with providing protection against much more than just LDL.