Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12775

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Goldstein J.
More Heartache for Pfizer Over Lipitor Pitchman Jarvik
The Wall Street Journal 2008 Feb 7
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/02/07/more-heartache-for-pfizer-over-lipitor-pitchman-jarvik/

Full text:

Congress has been asking questions for a month now about what Robert Jarvik’s doing endorsing Lipitor. That’s landed Jarvik on the Health Blog and on Good Morning America and on the front page of today’s New York Times.

Also today, ABC News reports on its web site that Jarvik was guaranteed $1.35 million for the ads, which promote Pfizer’s megablockbuster cholesterol drug.

The ads makes much of the fact that Jarvik, who invented an artificial heart, is a doctor, and show him in a white coat. But Jarvik has never practiced medicine and isn’t licensed to do so. For that matter, the Times notes, the commercial appears to show Jarvik rowing – but it’s actually a stunt double at the oars. “He’s about as much an outdoorsman as Woody Allen,” one of Jarvik’s colleagues told the Times. “He can’t row.”

In a statement, Jarvik says “I have the training, experience, and medical knowledge to understand the conclusions of the extensive clinical trials that have been conducted to study the safety and effectiveness of Lipitor.”

Jarvik declined to comment for the Times story, but he went on Good Morning America last month to discuss the ads, and told Diane Sawyer it was an “educational campaign.”

“What about generics? Why don’t you mention generics?” Sawyer asked.

“I don’t know. We have talked about generics in the ads,” he said.

Sawyer: “You have?”

Jarvik: “Or maybe there’s an ad that hasn’t come out yet that you haven’t seen.”