Comments on: FTC vs. bloggers, cont’d

By: Breadth of FTC blogger regs

Breadth of FTC blogger regs — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:58:05 +0000

[…] coverage here and here (& welcome Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit, Jonathan Adler/Volokh […]

By: sch

sch — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:09:37 +0000

Corky, your complaint to the congress critter will be much more likely
to be heard if associated with a PACT check for $5000 or so and the
promise of more to follow on a periodic basis. Politicians don’t seem
to think that limits on contributions should apply to them. In my state
legislators have an onerous limit of $250/day per lobbyist in how
much a legislator can receive, and very little limitation on how the
resultant contributions can be used. A local mayor has reportedly
been observed to visit ‘bingo halls’ and after being directed to certain
machines gotten payouts of $20k and $50k on separate occasions
after brief play.

By: Tom Perkins

Tom Perkins — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:29:07 +0000

“TV to push drugs to rich old white people.”

Except those people aren’t all rich, aren’t all old, and aren’t all white–and their money also funds every other bit of research and charity the pharma companies do.

What, you think government will fund it all? Yeah, nothing to worry about with that–medical decisions being made for political instead of personal and medical reasons.

By: Corky Boyd

Corky Boyd — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:10:03 +0000

While you downplay the threat and acccept the premise it is aimed more at the advertiser, then why target bloggers in the first place. And if the FTC wants to require disclosure, why just bloggers and not newspapers, radio stations, TV networks?

I can tell you from working in the newspaper business for over 40 years (primarily on the business side) there are free lunches, cocktail receptions, free flights. In one case the district sales manager of a major cruise line offered me a cruise if I would accompany her (without my wife). I declined. General Motors used to give a special discount to news gathering employees.

How can the FTC see a threat from bloggers, most of whom have daily views under a thousand, and ignore newspapers with circulations of hundreds of thousands and cable shows in the milllions?

My personal belief is it is simply a way of keeping us under their thumb, just as the FCC will be doing to broadcasters when they shorten license periods from 8 years to 3 and require proof of compliance with vaguely worded requirements for community involvement, local outreach , etc.

As a lawyer you may not feel threatened by a lawsuit, but for some gamer with a small audience to hire a lawyer to defend himself in federal court, means a retainer in the thousands. And a lot more to appear in court.

I personally am going contact my congressman and senators to pressure the FTC to rescind this. Others should do the same.

By: Do LINKS Constitute A Violation Of Federal Trade Commission Regulations? | Popehat

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:27:56 +0000

[…] post by Walter Olson, who along with Ron Coleman has been ahead of the field on the Federal Trade Commission’s […]

By: Ed R.

Ed R. — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:10:09 +0000

One would think that doctors (and nurses) aren’t swayed by pharma giveaways. In my experience, however, when advising me to take an OTC drug, doctors and nurses almost always name a particular brand rather than using the generic name. I’m not talking about drugs whose generic names the public is unfamiliar with, but widely-known drugs such as acetaminophen or pseudoephedrine.

By: Bill Alexander

Bill Alexander — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:27:53 +0000

tekel, does that include giving them the time of day? Just curious.

By: tekel

tekel — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:41:18 +0000

it is nothing short of bribery for pharma or medical device companies to give ANYTHING to ANYONE in healthcare services who has discretion to recommend their products to patients. The federal government should ban giveaways in healthcare, and force compliance by ending medicare reimbursement for products from any company that violates the ban.

It’s also a travesty that pharma companies are allowed to spend money on direct-to-patient advertising. In a world where people are still regularly dying of tuberculosis, any product that requires a multi-million dollar ad campaign to generate demand shouldn’t qualify as Medicine.

That goes for shit like Nexium or Cymbalta just as much as it does for Viagara. I challenge anyone to make a case that the world would not be vastly improved if Pfizer could no longer use TV to push drugs to rich old white people.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:54:11 +0000

What the nanny state of Wisconsin was not mentioned? My wife practices here in WI and I understood the Wisconsin Medical Society voted to ban such freebies. Really, does anyone out side the govt or some special interest group believe that doctors would be swayed by a cappuccino or a fancy pen? Even by a model of part of the human body? A book? I remember going to her big medical conventions and finding little freebies like this as a matter of routine. Made it fun for me. My wife, and I suspect most docs, grew wearied of this stuff. We still have a large box of various pens at home from such places.

By: Mia

Mia — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:54:09 +0000

Wow! I wonder if they’re going to cut out the practice of pharmaceutical salespeople bringing lunch and other goodies to the office staff at physicians’ offices? I used to work for a large doctor’s office and those guys and gals really used to put on the dog for us. They fed the whole staff – from secretaries to lab and x-ray techs to the nurses and docs – around 50 people. They brought lunch from some of the most favorite restaurants. They also regularly handed out freebies like pens and post-it notepads. The salespeople were always attractive and dressed in the finest businesswear. This one guy even used to bring us Italian from a local eatery and he would bring empty wine bottles with candles and checkered tablecloths, as well as a CD player with classical music.

I remember one of our doctors used to not partake as a kind of a protest against this practice. He thought it was awful that some of his patients could hardly afford both medicine and food, so he would sit in his office with his little brown bag lunch and cup of hot tea. It used to kind of make me feel bad to see him sitting there like that…but not bad enough to not partake of the feast.