Pfizer Corp. announced today that Viagra will soon be available in
liquid form, and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage
suitable for use as a mixer. It will now be possible for a man to
literally pour himself a stiff one.  Obviously we can no longer call
this a soft drink, and it gives new meaning to the names of “cocktails”,
“highballs” and just a good old-fashioned “stiff drink”. Pepsi will
market the new concoction by the name of:    MOUNT & DO.

A recent visit to a DrugWonks.com blog URL resulted in an odd display…

As you can see, the lower right hand corner contains a logo for PoliticalMedia.com.

Now, DrugWonks.com is a part of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI), which describes itself as a “non-partisan, non-profit educational charity”…

Yet, DrugWonks.com appears to be hosted by PoliticalMedia.com, whose slogan is “Inside Politics… Outside the Box”?

A closer look at PoliticalMedia.com reveals that they “compiled a consistent winning record in [their] political and public relations campaigns. [They] merge a decade of advertising knowledge with Capitol Hill and international management experience, to provide unparalleled solutions for today’s fast-paced political environment.”

Might a more fitting description read: “Non-partisan, non-profit and political?”

Attempts to reach DrugWonks.com for comment were unsuccessful at the time of this posting.

No, it’s not a new drug. Have you heard about Twitter? According to the Twitter website, “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” Some have referred to twitter as a form of micro-blogging.

While Twitter has been around for a while, folks in the pharma industry have just begun to take interest in the service. We’ve been following a few pharma “Twitterers” and here’s what they’ve had to say in terms of “what they’re doing”:

Okay, so not too exciting, but wait…

Not enough excitement, you say?

Wait, it gets better…

Whoa! Okay, so maybe our pharma twitterers have some honing to do when it comes to their twittering skills (or at least may want to learn a little discretion??)

Stay tuned for more twitter to come!

’nuff said.

John Mack, writer of the Pharma Marketing and Pharma BlogoSphere blogs, continues to exhibit symptoms of homosexual panic with his apparent obsession about famed cardiologist Robert Jarvik’s sexual orientation.  Mack has written about his concerns over Jarvik’s "being gay" on numerous occasions.  His perhaps most infamous rant being related to, yes, believe it or not, Jarvik’s manner of dress.

Mack: I was struck by the TV version of this ad where Dr. Jarvik strolls "foppily" through and around a hologram — or it seems like one — of a heart.

When I saw that natty suit, just the right amount of cuff showing, the PURPLE tie and matching handkerchief in the jacket pocket, and his peculiar way of walking, I thought immediately "gay!"

 Mack continues:

Is there anything wrong with being a fop? You betcha! There is something odd about a foppy image of a doctor in a DTC ad. I just think it goes over like a lead balloon.

Inventor of an artificial heart or not, what guy wants to be examined by a doctor who looks like this! Maybe it’s an OK look for an OB/Gyn, but not a cardiologist — which, next to a brain surgeon, is the most manly medical specialty.

Could it be that Mack is struggling with his own internal homosexual impulses?  Or perhaps just succumbing to ill-informed stereotypes?

Numerous of Mack’s readers jumped on the bandwagon with him:

I definitely agree…not the part about him being a "fop" but the part where his way of talking and walking immediately made me think "he’s so gay." It’s not the suit, it’s just his face!

Before I heard him speak or saw him walk, just his eyes…told me he’s gay. I have a pretty accurate gay-dar (radar).

I found out that he’s married, though, maybe he’s an in-the-closet gay.

Another of Mack’s readers writes: 

It wasn’t the dress that convinced me Jarvik was Gay. It was his style of voice. Let’s face it, the guy is weak and flaming. (Might be something wrong with that). I’m surprised he has the guts to come out on public TV and expose himself. Gutsy perhaps.l

And yet another: 

I think he passed it on to his son, as well. Watch the way the son runs during the commercials. Who runs like that? He looks like the lady on the Seinfeld episode who doesn’t swing her arms when she walks!

One reader, interestingly one of the few identifying herself by name, writes:

hey what’s all the big deal about jarvik being gay or not? don’t people have better things to worry about other than whether someone who has dedicated his life to saving lives is gay or not? personally i think he is sexy as hell and would love to meet or contact him. leave the man alone. have you done anything that is so successful in your lives?

"This reminds me of a conversation I had with an educator friend of mine once who was telling me about her respect for gays," says Jane Sloan, a gay/lesbian rights activist.  "She told me that she honestly thought gays and lesbians were more intelligent than the average heterosexual.  However, she continued by explaining she could ‘tell gays from straights by the shape of their heads.’"  Sloan adds, "The scary thing is that this woman has a Ph.D. and is the principal of a public middle school!"  "Mack along with some of his readers clearly could benefit from some enlightenment."

Wikipedia defines homosexual panic as a: "condition [that] most often occurs in people who… have insulated themselves from physical intimacy. Breakdowns often occur in situations that involve enforced intimacy with the same sex, such as dormitories or military barracks. It was most common during the mass mobilization of World War II when barracks typically provided little privacy with communal showers and often without doors or even cubicles around toilets."

Mack: Yes, I admit it. I am a homophobe. Well, at least when it comes to choosing a cardiologist. I also don’t like getting massages from men.

Could it be that Mack is revealing more about himself than he is about others? 

Whatever happened to Bert Spilker at CenterWatch’s ClinicalTrialsToday??  His last posting appears to have been on March 2, 2007!

For those who may be jonesin’ for a good Spilkerism, here are a few gems from the past:

“For a difference to make a difference it must be a real difference.”

“As soon as patient enrollment decreases below projections by a fixed number determined in advance of the trial, seek to learn the cause.”

“Exercise great caution in hiring academic or government employees into the industry as leaders, as you may have to spend years of “on the job training” to have them reach the state that many industrial managers are at today.”

We miss ya’ Bert!!

According to Wikipedia, “Camelot is the most famous fictional castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur… a place… associated with ideals like justice, bravery and truth, the virtues Arthur and his knights embody…”

Not virtues associated with Pharmalot though, according to readers of the blog in response to a recent posting on the site about a series of prank video clips about the pharma sales world:

This soap-opera thing and the Pharmagossip have no place in serious journalism. Shame on you, Pharmalot, for propagating such trash.

Another reader writes:

First, your sports page lost its luster. Now, this. You’re getting closer and closer to the NY Times. What trash. Shame on you for even publishing it.

And another reader adds:

For what it’s worth, these “humorous” things that you post from time-to-time always are at the expense of an industry full of hard-working and honest people who work to develop life-saving medications. I think Bob (and myself) would appreciate your humor a little more if it were balanced. I’ve never seen any humorous stuff on your website about frivolous lawsuits. What about ill-informed juries making ridicules decisions about patents? Your humor is one-sided — the pharma industry is always the butt of the joke. While those pieces are funny sometimes, your inclusion of them on your site says something about the views that you try to hard hide in your journalistic pieces. If you strive to be unbiased in your reporting, I think you should strive to be unbiased in your humor as well.

Pharmalot is written by Ed Silverman of The Star-Ledger of New Jersey. The blog is generally geared towards standard reporting of activities in the pharma/ healthcare industries. However, in the recent piece: “A Soap Opera: Pharmaceuticals Is An Ugly Business,” posted on March 15, 2008, Silberman appears to have taken his cue from the notorious PharmaGossip Blog.

For his part, Silverman appears steadfast in responding to his readers…

With all due respect, I’ve already explained my decision about why I chose to post the soap opera. And I’m not ‘hiding’ my own views in choosing to post this particular soap opera. Go back and read my explanation if you’re not clear – it addresses some of the issues that are often discussed on this site.

I’m not sure which other humorous items you’re referring to when you say the pharma industry is always the butt of the joke here. You suggest there have been a lot. In reality, I’ve posted only a couple of outright parody items since the site launched in January 2007 – one was the spoof of John Lennon’s Imagine, which I already mentioned, and that was last summer. (Recently, I did post two politically oriented humorous items – about Kennedy, Obama and Clinton; and last week, about Spitzer).

Lastly, I like to think I have a well-developed and well-rounded sense of humor (candidly, you need one to be a journalist and run this kind of site). But I’ll tell you what – if I find a parody of ‘frivolous’ lawsuits concerning pharma, and it’s a well done parody, I will consider posting. To the best of my knowledge, no one has bothered to make a good one.

Regards
ed

Will the jousting continue?