'Patient influencers' are being paid by big pharma to mislead TikTok and Instagram followers about drugs for HIV, Parkinson's and migraines, experts warn 1/2

• Researchers interviewed 26 patient influencers, mainly 'mico-influencers'

• More than half had collaborated with a pharmaceutical company in some way

• Maker of 'miracle' weight loss jab Wegovy 'bribed pharmacists'

By Caitlin Tilley, Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com Updated: 12:38 EDT, 21 March 2023

So-called 'patient influencers' are being paid by big pharmaceutical companies to make content that might mislead their TikTok and Instagram followers, experts warn. With trust in pharmaceutical companies decreasing, drug makers are cashing in on real patients turned social media influencers to spread the word about their products.

An influx of posts on TikTok and Twitter has put drugs such as weight-loss shots Ozempic and Wegovy in the spotlight, leading some to take it without a doctor's prescription. The Ozempic and Wegovy hashtags are among the most popular for pharmaceutical drugs on TikTok. Many patients share their experiences using the drugs and promote its weightloss, though not all reviews are entirely positive. Videos range from hundreds of thousands to millions of views

Research by the University of Colorado published this week in the Journal of Medical Internet Research found that patients who later become social media influencers often offer prescription drug advice to their followers and have close links with drugmakers.

Erin Willis, lead study author and associate professor of advertising, public relations and media design, said the practice 'raises ethical questions'.Ms Willis interviewed 26 patient influencers between March and April 2022 with conditions including lupus, fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s disease, asthma, HIV, celiac disease, chronic migraines and perimenopause.

• The majority were 'micro-influencers' with between 1,000 and 40,000 followers.

• These people are generally cheaper for advertisers to work with than celebrities with a larger following.

• More than half (69 percent) had collaborated with a pharmaceutical company in some way.

• These include serving on advisory boards, speaking to physicians and researchers or communicating with key audiences.

• Some 15 percent of the interviewees said they shared new releases from pharmaceutical companies with their followers if the information was relevant.

• Twelve percent read medical studies and shared the results simply with their online audience.

• Disseminating this information was not prompted by sponsorships or payments from the drug company — the influencers said they were doing it because 'they wanted to be credible to their followers'.

• One participant said: 'I feel like I have a unique skill set where I’m not trained in the neuroscience of migraine, but I can read peer-reviewed research and get the gist of it, minus the really technical sort-of-science-y parts.'

• The study paper said: 'The patient influencers wanted to be an accurate, trustworthy source for their followers and did not ever want to mislead other patients.' But some were paid to post content for pharmaceutical companies.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11868945/Patient-influencers-paid-big-pharma-mislead-TikTok-users-drugs-like-Wegovy.html

>>19500313

2/2

The patient influencers used were also a curated sample provided by Health Union, a digital health company, which Ms Willis acknowledged meant they were likely to be on the responsible side.

Ms Willis saidsocial media users will frequently fail to recognize the difference between a sponsored adand a genuine, personal post.

She said: 'Health literacy and digital literacy are both concerningly low in this country.

The fact that patients with no medical training are broadly sharing drug information should alarm us.'

• Multiple participants said followers often private message them to get more in-depth information about dosage and side effects.

• Direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising has been popular since it first began in the 1980s.

• Still only legal in the US and New Zealand, it enables drug companies to target consumers directly instead of only going through doctors.

• Roughly half of the patients who ask their doctor about a drug after seeing an advert on TV get given it.

• Elon Musk credited the popular diet drug Wegovy with making him 'fit, ripped and healthy' and said he lost almost 30lbs (13.6kg) while taking it

DTC drug advertising is a booming market, and has grown almost five-fold from 1997 to 2016.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) mandates that influencers disclose if they have been paid by using hashtags such as #ad or #sponsored, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has regulations on the sorts of things that can be said on social posts.

However, these are open to interpretation, and features such as videos, disappearing content and direct messages can be tough to keep a handle on. Ms Willis said regulators need to ensure they are monitoring all the new platforms. She said: 'This is happening, with or without regulation, and people should be aware of it.'

•Among Wegovy's famous users is tech mogul Elon Musk. He credited the drug with making him 'fit, ripped and healthy' and said he lost almost 30lbs (13.6kg) while taking it.

He revealed that he was using it in October last year when a fan asked what the secret was to his new slimmed-down appearance. 'Fasting', Musk, 51, replied before adding: 'And Wegovy'.

• Novo Nordisk, manufacturers of Ozempic and Wegovy, told DailyMail.com: 'We do not currently work with any influencers to share their experience taking Wegovy or Ozempic through their personal social media channels. Any social media content sponsored by Novo Nordisk is identified and labeled as such.

• 'All Novo Nordisk sponsored content is consistent with approved labeling and with all applicable laws and regulations governing the promotion of our products.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11868945/Patient-influencers-paid-big-pharma-mislead-TikTok-users-drugs-like-Wegovy.html

>>19500148 The Media Wants Us to Know That Jill Biden Has COVID – The Primary Election Variant PN

I think this comment from anon on this article isnotableand important to know. Thx anon for the analysis

>>19500166

>>19500148

>Does anyone really care?

you should consider what is being set up- the death of Biden. To underscore the seriousness of 'new strains',, the importance of 'vaccination', etc…

Solves many problems for them, and on boards President Harris without a vote, moving into the potential worldwide pandemic declaration, War Powers Act, War, suspended elections, etc…

>>19499288 More than HALF of CDC staff leave to work for Big Pharma and 'revolving door' of workers at public agency makes it vulnerable to corruption, report warns PN

I tried to download the report, and anon can only get it if subscribed or pay $49 for print copy. What pisses me off is that it probably without a doubt that our government funded this study, and we peons have to pay to see it. I don't think they want the general public to see it at all.Any anon have access to Journal of Health Affairs?"Or graduate of USC or Harvard that might be able to download it? See link below.

Researchers from the University of Southern California and Harvard University who published the report said this 'revolving door' between federal workers and private healthcare companies has made government agencies vulnerable to corruption.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2023.00418

https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2023.00418

I bet no one saw this article last year!

Vaccine injury compensation programs overwhelmed as congressional reform languishes 1/2/

One program covers nearly three times as many vaccines today as it did when it was created three decades ago. Despite bipartisan calls for change, Congress has failed to act. Patient advocates, attorneys and the pharmaceutical industry fear that without drastic reforms, the already over-burdened standard Vaccine Injury Compensation Program could collapse.

By Lauren Gardner06/01/2022

A pair of federal programs compensating people who suffer injuries from vaccines and pandemic treatments are now facing so many claims that thousands of people may not receive payment for their injuries any time soon.

The first program, meant for standard vaccines, such as measles and polio, has too little staff to handle the number of reported injuries, and thousands of patients are waiting years for their cases to be heard.

A second program designed for vaccines and other treatments created or used during pandemics has seen unsustainable growth.Between 2010 and 2020, the Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program received 500 complaints. In the two years since Covid-19 appeared, it has received over 8,000 complaints.

More than 5,000 of those are directly related to the Covid-19 vaccines, with injuries ranging from a sore shoulder to death, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. An additional 3,000 complaints related to everything from drugs and devices to the failure of hospital staff to limit infection spread have also been filed.

Yet the pandemic fund has paid zero claims, in part because officials are waiting for people to submit detailed medical records and documentation to back up their allegations. “Compensation determinations are made based on individual case reviews, and the statute sets a very high standard that a claimant must meet to be eligible for compensation,” HRSA spokesperson David Bowman said.

Should Covid-19 shots become routine once the pandemic ends, alleged injuries would eventually be handled by the already over-burdened standard Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Patient advocates, attorneys and the pharmaceutical industry fear that without drastic reforms, that program could collapse.

Despite bipartisan calls for change, Congress has failed to act, frustrating those who say that the VICP — which covers nearly three times as many vaccines today as it did when it was created three decades ago — is overwhelmed.

There are fears those optics could fuel vaccine hesitancy if the public mistakes the situation as too many injuries flooding the program, when in fact the number of vaccines covered by the program has grown without a commensurate increase in resources.

“The cost of this program failing will be like throwing kerosene on the antivax fire,” said Renee Gentry, director of George Washington University’s Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic. Covid-19 shots have proven to be safe for the overwhelming majority of people, but injuries do occur, as they do for all vaccines. Allergic reactions are possible, and some specific adverse events have been associated with the shots, such as myocarditis and pericarditis after messenger RNA vaccination, and thrombosis with thrombocytopenia after receiving the Johnson & Johnson shot.

“The Covid vaccine injuries are still rare, but there are some very significant injuries that have destroyed lives,” Gentry said. “It’s frustrating to tell those people who did everything right … that they get nothing for that.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/01/vaccine-injury-compensation-programs-overwhelmed-as-congressional-reform-languishes-00033064

>>19501007

1/2The government won't pay the claims….hmm on Covid shots

Vaccine injury compensation programs overwhelmed as congressional reform languishes

Congress created the national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1986, partly as a means to avoid lawsuits against vaccine makers and health care providers amid fears that litigation could deter drug companies from producing vaccines and dampen consumer confidence in immunizations.

The program originally covered six routine childhood vaccinations, including measles and polio. But it’s grown to include 16 vaccines — including influenza shots, which tens of millions of people receive every year — without commensurate growth in staff or money needed to handle the additional claims.

The current backlog of cases is more than two years long, said Susan Steinman, senior director of policy and senior counsel at American Association for Justice, which lobbies for plaintiffs’ lawyers. There were 2,057 VICP petitions filed in fiscal 2021.

“It’s not supposed to take longer than actually going to court,” Steinman said. “We have this program backward right now.”

VICP is funded by a 75-cent excise tax on each dose of the 16 CDC-recommended vaccines and currentlyhas nearly $4.3 billion on hand. Congress must also appropriate money from the fund to cover Department of Justice attorneys’ and the federal claims court’s work to process claims, in addition to the claims themselves.

Meanwhile, the CICP was created in 2010 to cover vaccines, medications and devices developed in response to a public health emergency. Injured patients and their survivors must submit a request for compensation within one year of receiving the vaccine or drug to HRSA, including medical documentation of the injury or death, with one opportunity for reconsideration if their initial petition is denied.

“HHS just accepts or denies the claims, there’s no judicial review, and there’s very little information about why things have been denied,” said Christina Ciampolillo, president of the Vaccine Injured Petitioners Bar Association.

A novel vaccine has never been transferred from the pandemic program to VICP — the H1N1 flu shot that debuted after that flu season began became part of the next season’s annual vaccine cocktail.

Should the Covid-19 vaccines become routinely recommended by the CDC — and be approved by the FDA for all age groups — it’s unclear how and when they’d be shuffled under the VICP umbrella.

“We think it’s very important to make sure the program is robust and patients’ claims get filed and heard in a timely fashion, and part of that is about adequate staffing and resources in the U.S. government,” said Phyllis Arthur, vice president for infectious diseases and diagnostics policy at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/01/vaccine-injury-compensation-programs-overwhelmed-as-congressional-reform-languishes-00033064

>>19501007

I thought all the anons that are interested in reading laws may be interested in the Vaccine Injury Act passed on Nov. 14, 1986 and the amended version as of 2016