Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15681

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

Dawdy P.
Former Abilify Spokespatient Criticizes Abilify, Featured In Wall Street Journal
Furious Seasons 2009 May 14
http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2009/05/former_abilify_spokespatient_criticizes_abilify_featured_in_wall_street_journal.html

Full text:

Regular readers are well aware of the tale of Andy Behrman, author of “Electroboy,” who became a spokespatient in 2004 and 2005 for Bristol-Myers Squibb’s atypical antipsyhcotic Abilify. But by 2006, he’d experienced such nasty side effects on the drug—jerking legs among them—that he went off it and eventually wrote a piece for my site in 2006 concerning his experiences with Abilify (a piece that had originally been published by About.com but was soon removed by the company). As I noted last year, Behrman was on the verge of authoring a tell-all book about his experiences shilling for Abilify before BMS sales reps, doctors, nurses and even patients. BMS had nothing to say about Behrman when I queried the company last year, but it has plenty to say now as Behrman and BMS are in a war of words.

Now his story has hit the Wall Street Journal. BMS paid Behrman big money to tout its product and since he’s gone off the reservation on them they are fighting back with whatever they’ve got. The article is behind the subscription firewall and I won’t reproduce it in its entirety (I respect copyright) but can offer you all some snippets.

“In 2004, Bristol-Myers held a retreat for 1,250 sales representatives, to prepare them to market a powerful psychiatric drug for a new use — bipolar disorder.
“Pharmaceutical companies have taken to paying patients to help promote their products. In the case of Andy Behrman and Bristol-Myers, the relationship has backfired.

“A video of Mr. Behrman, a 42-year-old bipolar patient, filled a gigantic screen. He recounted how a Bristol-Myers drug, called Abilify, had changed his life. Unlike other medicines he had tried, Abilify had no side effects, he said. The testimonial drew a standing ovation.

“But Mr. Behrman says he had only taken the drug for four days before the video was filmed. He says he later experienced side effects — including dazed spells and agitation in his legs — unpleasant enough that he stopped taking the drug within a year. He says he eventually told several company employees privately about the difficulties he was having with the drug.

“Yet, he continued to talk glowingly about Abilify throughout 2004 and 2005, to sales representatives and other company employees, as well as psychiatrists hired by the company as consultants. In all, Bristol-Myers paid him $400,000.”

This is literally the first time that I have heard of a spokespatient turning on a pharma company—and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of such people out there. So Behrman’s story in highly unique. The fact that a spokespatient has gone south on them ought to have BMS shaking in its boots, especially since Behrman is expected to pop up on national TV very soon and has also recorded a lengthy video denouncing the drug. I expect to make the video available to readers later today or tomorrow. Behrman’s actions sure can’t warm the hearts of a company that is now aggressively marketing Abilify for depression and bipolar disorder. It might make BMS’ competitors’ days however.

Behrman is speaking publicly now because he wants the public to know about Abilify’s many problems—akathisia anyone?—and about the intense marketing that goes on around it and similar drugs. Behrman also has a book proposal to shop, so going public cannot hurt those efforts either.

“The company says Mr. Behrman raised no concerns about his experience until it declined to renew his contract because he asked for too much money — $7.5 million. Mr. Behrman denies he asked for that sum.
Last year, Mr. Behrman asked Bristol-Myers to ‘finance or otherwise be involved’ with a new book he plans to write about his experience with the company. The company declined. Then in January, his lawyer says they approached Bristol-Myers with another proposal, in which Mr. Behrman wouldn’t talk about his experiences if the company wouldn’t interfere with his attempts to get speaking engagements. Bristol-Myers says Mr. Behrman was seeking compensation, and it declined that offer, too.”

Behrman also strongly denied to me that he’d asked BMS for $7.5 million. BMS showed the paper an email purportedly containing that amount of money, but Behrman and his lawyer told the paper it was a fake designed to discredit him.

I find it hard to buy BMS’ claim for the simple reason that $7.5 million a year to speak on behalf of a product is the kind of money that professional athletes and Hollywood celebrities get (they sometimes get much more). It’s a bit hard to believe Behrman saw himself that way and would’ve asked for that much money.

But he did get special care and handling from BMS and outside PR folks on what to say when he spoke about the drug:

“He says Bristol-Myers’s Mr. Brown touched base with him almost every day, and he worked closely with Elyse Margolis, an employee of a public-relations firm hired by Bristol-Myers. She gave him ‘talking points’ for his presentations, he says. Among them: To reiterate that Abilify had no side effects; to say the drug had ‘saved’ him; and to avoid mentioning he was being paid by Bristol-Myers. If asked about the latter, he was to answer truthfully, say he couldn’t disclose the amount and ‘move on.’
“In an email, Ms. Margolis said when she worked with Mr. Behrman, she followed routine protocol used with speakers so they ‘are prepared to accurately, and proactively, speak to the label, including potential side effects and any other issues.’ She declined to comment on talking points.

“Bristol-Myers also sent Mr. Behrman to a communications consultant named Nellie O’Brien in 2005. He says she instructed him to tell audiences he was only taking Abilify and never mention other drugs. Ms. O’Brien told him to always refer to Abilify by name and to stay away from unflattering aspects of his past, he says.

“Ms. O’Brien declined comment, saying all her dealings with clients are confidential.

“Bristol-Myers says consultants are asked to ‘help patients tell their story in their words.’”

Apparently, some of this was going on while Behrman was having bad experiences with the drug, but I guess $10,000 per appearance (what BMS was paying) bought a lot of sticking to talking points. Or he was befuddled enough while taking the drug—a side effect of some antipsychotics—to obscure matters on his own. It will be interesting to read how Behrman explains all of this in his future book.

“Within weeks of taking Abilify, Mr. Behrman says he felt stiffness and agitation in his legs. He says Abilify clouded his thinking. He now says the drug made him feel worse than any treatment he has tried.
“At the time he was speaking on behalf of the drug, he says he privately complained about side effects to several Bristol-Myers’ employees. Once, after repeating during a speech that Abilify had no side effects for him, he says he turned to Mr. Brown and said: ‘You know that’s not true, right?’ He says Mr. Brown replied, ‘Yes, some people do experience side effects.’ Bristol-Myers says it has no record that Mr. Brown or any of its employees ever heard Mr. Behrman complain about side effects.”

Near the end of the article, the Journal’s reporter notes:

“In July 2006, Mr. Behrman wrote a piece about the side effects he claims to have experienced on Abilify for a Web site.”
I suspect the reporter is referring to my website, since the About.com piece had been pulled earlier in the year and then I ran it on this site—in May 2006. I don’t think Behrman wrote about his Abilify experiences anywhere else. Always nice to get an oblique reference in the WSJ.

Anyway, stay tuned for what’s bound to be a lot more on this little war of words between Behrman and BMS.