Bloggers Do What?
4 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // March 20th, 2007 // 9:34 am
Pharmalot had quite an exciting Monday evening. Instead of filing all those posts and links, there were two engagements in Manhattan.
First, there was a trip to the low-budget studios run by ScribeMedia, a budding web site that wants to create an enormous web TV presence. Pharmalot stopped by for an hour to chat about the pharmaceutical industry. The interview should be available shortly on the health page on the site, which Pharmalot is told does not have any drugmakers among its sponsors.
From there, it was a bumpy cab ride to dinner at Beppe, an expensive restaurant near Gramercy Park, which was hosted by the Johnson & Johnson corporate communications team. The upper room was reserved so they could chat with a small group of pharma and health bloggers about the challenges such sites pose to public relations.
There were no great revelations, but plenty of convivial chatter. The bloggers, which included Gene from MedGadget; Jim from BrandWeekNRX; Bob and Peter of DrugWonks, Steve from DocInTheMachine and Fard from Envisioning 2.0, compared notes about content and answered J&J questions about news judgment, finding info and determining who’s legit. The J&J squad, in the words of Jeff Leebaw, is “still trying to figure some of this out.” They do have their hands full, don’t they?
For those who are curious, the food was good. Full disclosure: Pharmalot consumed trout, but insisted on paying. The arrangement is this: J&J will send the bill and Pharmalot will send a check. Pharmalot does not accept industry funding. Surprised? We hope not.
Thanks to Bob for the ride home.
Insider
Well done Ed. Thank you for the update.
Did you ask the J&J folks how things were getting along with their “improper payments in two small-market countries” issue? Oh and how about their three subpoenas from U.S. attorneys related to sales and marketing of three of its prescription drugs. How are they coming along?
“Who’s legit” my arse! (to quote a popular English comedian).
Lets see which of the other bloggers mention last night….
By the way. What did the others do about the cost of the meal?
Now that would be getting closer to full disclosure!
When you sup with the devil, best use a long spoon!
;-)
heknows
Here is how it works in Canada and with big pharma cos. like J&J:
They have invented “advicory board” meetings to which specilaists of thier choice are invited to “give adice”. These are in fact so called “group dinner meetings” where promotion of a drug is done by an “authority” who does a talk in which he pushes the sponsoring Co product. Not only the specialists do not pay for their ($1-300) dinner they get paid $500-1000, for their “advice” that never happenes. This payoff is for showing up and also to butter them up for future use of the drug promoted.
“heknows” invited numerous doctors to such “advicory board” during his last years with the big pharma. Some would not come for some good reason, but ONLY one refused to come because he thought it was not ethical to get paid for this type of thing by the big pharma co. Believe it or not his name was Dr. Good. Go figure.
ed
To heknows:
This is a very good observation. Thank you. Just for the record, so there’s no confusion, I didn’t accept payment, nor was it offered. And I repeated my insistance about paying for dinner to three J&J people and received a commitment about the payment procedure I described in my post in front of others.
And yes, I’m well aware of these little dinners, but had no problem attending so long as I paid my own way. I hope there was no misunderstanding about my appearance.
I’m glad you raised this issue, though, because it’s an interesting reminder, or introduction, certainly, for many peoplle about such gatherings. Again, thanks for writing.
And to Insider: I did poke Jeff Leebaw once about his fear of being subpoenaed. He laughed a bit nervously, but who can blame him? If Scooter Libby can easily be made into a fall guy, imagine what could happen to a poor guy in corporate pr? :)
I believe Jim at BrandWeek wrote about it, but I’ve no idea whether anyone else insisted on paying. Keep in mind, that some of these folks are bloggers, but may not think of themselves as journalists. I think one fellow is an emergency room doctor, but I’m not sure. So its hard for me to know if paying for dinner was even an issue for everyone.
In any event, you never know - such situations can be devlish fun!
HealthCareVox
A Few Words About The Johnson & Johnson Blogger Dinner
Johnson and Johnson invited a number of bloggers to a private dinner a few days ago in New York City to talk about social media and healthcare/pharmaceutical industry-focused blogs. Among those attending were Ed Silverman of Pharmalot, Jim Edward…