Dr. Drew Cashes In

[salvorhardin]

Thanks to the Justice Department, we now know of a Dr. Drew payday large enough to trigger a reverie or two. As part of its monstrous $3 billion settlement with the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the DOJ unsealed documents showing that the dear doctor had taken in at least $275,000 for “services for Wellbutrin.”

Precisely how can one service an antidepressant like Wellbutrin? According to the government’s complaint, Dr. Drew was hired to “deliver messages about [Wellbutrin SR] in settings where it did not appear that Dr. Pinsky was speaking for GSK.” After Pinsky suggested that Wellbutrin might be responsible for increasing a woman’s orgasm rate—to as many as 60 orgasms in a good night—an internal GSK memo noted approvingly that Dr. Drew had “communicated key campaign messages” about Wellbutrin to the public.

In Dr. Drew’s case, the Justice Department isn’t the first to point out that he’s been taking money from pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers. In January, while researching conflicts of interest caused by pharmaceutical payments, I discovered that Pinsky had taken $115,000 from Janssen Pharmaceuticals. When the news went public, Janssen was the first to defend Pinsky, stating that the money was for a program “aimed at educating teens, parents, and educators about the prevalence and serious risks of teen prescription drug abuse in the U.S. …” And Alison Rudnick, a spokesperson for CNN’s Headline News network, home of the show Dr. Drew, emailed me to confirm that, if appropriate, “Dr. Drew would provide an on-air disclaimer if he were to do a story involving Janssen Pharmaceuticals.” Be that as it may, there was no such disclaimer last week when the subject of the Dr. Drew show was gastric bypass surgery—even though the Los Angeles Times had an article in December questioning the propriety of Pinsky’s role as a spokesperson for 1-800-GET-THIN, a lap-band surgery marketing firm. (A source at Headline News says that the lap-band deal had elapsed by the time the gastric bypass show aired, so no disclosure was necessary.)

Link: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/07/dr_drew_pinsky_cashed_in_on_drug_company_money_is_your_doctor_on_the_take_.html

[Bombtrack]

1. I feel I owe it to Drew to sing his praises

since this is a pretty big flaw in his history.

I urge everyone who's never listened to have a taste of some classic 90's Loveline (Lovelinetapes.com is one good place last time I checked). I think it's easily the 2nd best radio show ever (if you isolate the show to when Adam Carolla was cohost (95-05). Just like I've had increasingly strong disagreements with Adam (who I'm still and will hopefully always be a fan of despite his increasing, annoying creep rightward, distracting from his shows ability to be hilarious). I also have always realized that a big flaw of Drew has been his pathological need to rake in money from corporate gigs (which some would argue include Celebrity rehab, but I would disagree). Ironically Carolla was the one who used to make fun of him all the time for his Pharma whorism back in the day.

Anyway despite all that I think Drew is a truely caring person and a positive force in society. IMHO he and Loveline and their truely positive influence on at risk people (like I was) outweigh the inferior work he might do in order to pay for his triplets Graduates school (his bullshit excuse for making big bucks, not mine).

[MADem]

2. Like he, or Tim Johnson, or Oz, or any of the other "tv doctors" hasn't "cashed in" up to now? nt