Heartfelt Advice, Hefty Fees
By MELODY
PETERSEN
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a rare interview, Lauren Bacall appeared on the NBC "Today" program
in March, telling Matt Lauer about a good friend who had gone blind
from an eye disease and urging the audience to see their doctors to
be tested for it.
"It's just — it's frightening because it — it can happen very
suddenly," she said. Ms. Bacall then mentioned a drug called
Visudyne, a new treatment for the disease known as macular
degeneration.
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She never revealed that she was being paid to tell the story, and
neither did the network, NBC.
"We compensated her for her time," said Dr. Yvonne Johnson,
medical affairs director for the ophthalmics division of
Novartis, the Swiss drug maker that sells Visudyne. Novartis
chose Ms. Bacall for its marketing campaign, Dr. Johnson said,
because she appeals to many people over 50, the primary market for
the drug.
"We realized people would accept what she was telling them," said
Dr. Johnson, who declined to say how much Ms. Bacall had been paid.
"Our whole intent is to let people know they don't have to go
blind."
The pharmaceutical industry is going Hollywood — and getting a
warm embrace.
In the last year or so, dozens of celebrities, from Ms. Bacall to
Kathleen Turner to Rob Lowe, have been paid hefty fees to appear on
television talk shows and morning news programs and to disclose
intimate details of ailments that afflict them or people close to
them. Often, they mention brand-name drugs without disclosing their
financial ties to the medicine's maker.
And even when drug companies say they pay nothing, Hollywood
producers have given their brand-name prescription drug products
starring roles on prime-time television programs.
Last winter, for example, an episode of "Law & Order" on NBC
revolved around Gleevec, a cancer drug sold by Novartis. On "West
Wing," also on NBC, President Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen,
suffers from multiple sclerosis and takes Betaseron, a drug made by
Berlex Laboratories. Both companies say they did not pay for those
prominent placements.
In the last few years, in their quest to wring more profit out of
their drugs before the patents expire, pharmaceutical companies have
poured billions of dollars into marketing their products — fielding
armies of sales representatives, entertaining doctors, nurses and
pharmacists, and taking their pitches directly to consumers in
glitzy television commercials and glossy magazine ads. Now, despite
criticism that those tactics raise the price of drugs, some
companies are also trying these more subtle sales pitches.
Consumer product companies like
Coca-Cola and BMW have been using celebrity endorsers and
placing their products in film and television scripts for decades.
But doing so with prescription drugs raises a host of issues,
experts say — especially when celebrities fail to disclose their
financial links to the companies.
"It is highly problematic and maybe even unethical," said Dr.
Joseph Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication
at the University of Pennsylvania.
"We admire these people and that is why drug companies pay for
their time and services," Dr. Turow said. "But when it comes to
issues of health, particularly medicines, transparency is an ethical
concern. People should be clear about the reasons they are making
certain recommendations."
Allison Gollust, a spokeswoman for the "Today" program, said NBC
may have made a mistake in handling the interview. At the time of
Ms. Bacall's interview, NBC executives did not consider her comments
about Visudyne to be a problem, she said.
"In hindsight, and with more information about celebrities and
their connection to drug companies, we may have handled that
differently," Ms. Gollust said.
Terry Barnett, president of Novartis's operations in the United
States, said the company did not intend for Ms. Bacall to promote
Visadyne. But he said in the future, even if a celebrity is talking
only about a disease, the company will be more careful at making
sure the audience knows the star is working on the company's behalf.
"I think we would look at that more closely in the future," Mr.
Barnett said.
None of the drug companies would disclose how much they have paid
stars for these services. But the case of Larry King provides an
indication. After Mr. King talked publicly about his heart disease
in a public awareness campaign, the company that put together that
effort convinced the
Guidant Corporation, which makes stents, to contribute medical
equipment valued at $1 million to Mr. King's charitable foundation,
which helps poor people.
DRUG companies have also wielded the might they gain from their
spending on consumer ads, which came to $2.7 billion last year
alone, to stop scripts that might put a brand-name medicine in an
unfavorable light. In December 2000, USA Network canceled the
production of a television film called "Who Killed Sue Snow?" — a
film about the deaths of two Seattle-area residents who took
cyanide-laced pain relievers — after complaints from
Johnson & Johnson, a major advertiser and the maker of Tylenol.
(Tylenol, of course, weathered just such an incident in 1982.)
Jeffrey J. Leebaw, a spokesman for Johnson & Johnson, said the
company had become aware of the movie and let the network know that
it did not feel it was appropriate. "We did not threaten to pull our
ads," he said.
Other health care companies, lacking that clout, have not fared
as well in Hollywood. The nation's health insurers have grown so
tired of their repeated portrayal by Hollywood as the corporate
villains of the health care system that in June they hired the
William Morris agency to improve their image.
Mark Merritt, senior vice president at the American Association
of Health Plans, a trade group that represents 1,000 insurers, said
a recent movie, "John Q," was the last straw for the companies. In
it, an insurance company refuses to cover the cost of a heart
transplant for a dying boy, and the boy's father, played by Denzel
Washington, grows desperate as his son's condition worsens. As
tension builds, he pulls out his gun and holds hostages in the
emergency room until the hospital agrees to put the boy on the heart
transplant list.
In other scripts, insurers are shown as profit-hungry companies
that deny patients prescription drugs, which are almost always
depicted as essential for health and life. In the "Law & Order"
episode on Gleevec, the father of a young girl with leukemia kills
an insurance executive after the insurer refuses to pay for the
drug, which on the show and in real life costs $25,000 a year. After
his lawyers argue that the killing was justified, the jury is unable
to reach a verdict.
Mr. Merritt said the William Morris agency was helping the
insurers set up meetings with Hollywood executives. "We want to sit
down with writers and producers of shows with health-care content
and get a fair hearing for our side of the story," Mr. Merritt said.
"Hollywood is too big to ignore."
There are many advantages to getting Hollywood on your side.
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