Astroturf
Thursday, November 20 2008
One of the things that annoys me the most about pharmaceutical marketing is the ersatz support communities. In civic organizing, this kind of thing is called “astroturf” – as in, fake grassroots organizations. For Crohn’s disease alone, there are at least three:
www.livingwithcrohnsdisease.com – owned by Centocor, maker of Remicade.
www.crohnsonline.com – owned by Abbott, maker of Humira.
www.crohnsandme.com – owned by UCB, maker of Cimzia.
If you’re a patient looking for information, these sites are traps. You want help, but you get ads for expensive meds. None of these websites existed until their respective owners had an FDA-approved drug ready for market, and all their content is designed to push you toward the click-through to their drug.
The drugs may help, but the ads don’t. If you want real help and support, you’re better off looking at some of the authentic* patient communities online:
www.ccfacommunity.org (this is not an endorsement of the CCFA)
community.livejournal.com/curecrohns
Not all the information you get from these sites is reliable, but at least the desire to help is sincere.
(*as far as I know)
