Big Pharma, Mercantilism and HIV
It was bound to happen. With the development of anti retroviral therapies equally successful against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the Pharmaceutical industry had to enter the competitive arena of the mercantilisation of AIDS’s treatments and what best than using scary marketing techniques to sale drugs to fight a frightening disease?
Whilst GlaxoSmithKline has been advertising its protease inhibitor Lexiva over the background of a shark infested sea, Bristol-Myers Squibb showed an image of a toilet and says, “Ask your doctor if there are HIV medications with a low risk of diarrhea” a side effect associated with the HIV drug Kaletra made by its competitor, Abbott.
Glaxo told the Wall Street Journal that their ads are “educational” and appropriate. “While we acknowledge that some people may find the headline and imagery of the materials to be provocative, GSK stands firmly behind the ads and their underlying message: Patients considering changing HIV therapy ought to consult closely with their physician to fully understand the near and potential long-term health implications of such changes,” said company spokesman Marc Meachem. Bristol-Myers spokesman said his company’s ad were appropriate too.
The belief of “appropriateness” has to be understood in the context of the pharmaceutical industry, where it is appropriate to blackmail governments which try to make ART available to PLWHA, where it is appropriate to multiply the price of ART by 5 to discourage competition, where it is appropriate to overprice life-saving medicines even when sold in developing countries, and where it is appropriate to lobby political party to guarantee business privileges.
“Such comparison ads are common elsewhere,” reports the WSJ, “but the pharmaceutical industry traditionally sold HIV drugs with images of hope and by explaining the benefits of their treatments. The tough new tack has some patient groups unsettled, saying it could scare off patients.”
Showing once more its complete lack of sensitivity, the Pharmaceutical industry also unconsciously plays the game of AIDS denialists who claim that it ARV kill people, a ludicrous claim that they will certainly try to support with information gathered from competitive adverts produced exacerbating ARV’s side effects.
Once more it is those in needs of ARV that will lose in the big money game.
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But hang on, isn’t it possible that Pharma is for once doing us a bit of a favour? One of the biggest problems we have on the HIV prevention front these days is making young people, the post-AIDS generation, aware that HIV is something better prevented than treated. While I’m sure Big Pharama doesn’t mean to, they are inadvertently helping out with that.
As a person living with HIV for 13 years, and as someone who has spent, oh, about a decade making rather too-regular panicked runs to the bathroom because of sudden, intense GI distress – that has led to public shame and humiliation more than once – the toilet bowl ads certainly speak to me. While I am thankful for the drugs that are keeping me alive, they are NO JOKE. Whenever I talk to high school and college students about what its like to live with HIV/AIDS, I am careful to say how important the drugs are, and I am just as careful to explain, in detail, how absolutely NASTY and TOXIC they can be. This is called HONESTY!
I am also pleased to say I just switched my drug regimen to one that has ZERO side effects – so drug companies absolutely SHOULD be pushing regimens and options that don’t ruin one’s quality of life. Yep, quality of life doesn’t show up in many Standards of Care guidelines, but it DOES show up in MY guidelines!
I have to admit I did not see it from THAT angle! Did I found someone even more cynical than I am?
Interestingly I am currently contributing to the design of a new booklet for people who test HIV NEGATIVE (who believe that everything they have been doing so far is fine and therefore happily but stupidly continue barebacking…). This view will help !
Hi. Could you enable full posts on the feeds? Your readers will love you for it.
… as soon as i find it in the mess of options Feedburner is!
I would love to see the pamphlet when you are done! But just one thing, barebacking is not automatically stupid —- I think if neg guys have followed the Australian model of talk, test, talk, trust, talk some more — that unprotected anal intercourse in that context is hardly stupid. Also, even for folks who are behaving this way without talking/testing etc, not sure the best way to reach them is to call them names and question their intelligence.
Point taken and agreed upon as long as you know that you are not at risk and not putting someone else at risk. In doubt… barebaking is a stupid things to do that even intelligent people are not immune to doing.
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