Friday, January 04, 2008

BLOGSCAN - Brody on Jarvik

Have you been annoyed by those television ads for Lipitor (atorvastatin, made by Pfizer Inc) featuring Dr Robert Jarvik? Have you wondered why TV viewers should listen to his advice? On the Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma blog, Dr Howard Brody cited investigative reporting by Robert Bazell on MSNBC about Jarvik's (lack of) qualifications to market Lipitor. Although he has an MD, he never did an internship or residency and never practiced medicine. And his Jarvik 7 artificial heart was not a big success.

1 comment:

everdream said...

Thanks for this information. The ad takes advantage of the collective ignorance and short term memory of the public aggregate: we remember the name Jarvik, but forget the details about him. Thanks for reminding us all.