KATHELEEN TURNER , ACTRESSTREATS WITH MINOCIN

[MINOCINMAN]

I just noticed that actress, Katheleen Turner sucessfully used AP with Dr. T for RA. Here is link to article. FYI
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/spotlight/2001-06-01-turner-arthritis.htm

[Maz]

Yes, she saw Dr. T in Boston, but took a job as a spokesperson for Wyeth to promote Enbrel.

Interestingly, the title of the following article is Top 7 Celebrity Drug Endorsements – Commerical or Cause?

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CelebrityCafe/Story?id=7209401&page=3

[Jan Lucinda1]

It was unfortunate that she went with Wyeth.

[MINOCINMAN]

Yes, I wonder if she ever even took Enbrel. if not, and then for the money endorsed this ans and gave to info for AP this would be a terrible sell out.

@Maz wrote:

Yes, she saw Dr. T in Boston, but took a job as a spokesperson for Wyeth to promote Enbrel.

Interestingly, the title of the following article is Top 7 Celebrity Drug Endorsements – Commerical or Cause?

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CelebrityCafe/Story?id=7209401&page=3

[Maz]

Hi MinocinMan,

I remember seeing her being interviewed on Larry King a couple years ago and a caller called in to the show to ask what meds she was taking for her RA. Here was her response, which sounds as if she is talking about one medicine:

http://www.cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0802/15/lkl.01.html

“CALLER: I have a question for you. I have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and it is has debilitated my life. I heard you earlier say that you had taken some of the medicines that were worst for your body than the actual disease. I myself have done the same. What is your current treatment for R.A. right now, and how do you deal with the pain and the fatigue?

TURNER: Well, I got to tell you first of all, that I would not be correct for me to give you the name of the medicine. Really, that has to be an issue with your doctor. A lot of successes with these medication depends on how early you’re diagnosed so that the damage is lessened.”

Strangely, most people are happy to share what has worked for them and this is not considered prescibing. So, was she avoiding answering as she is a spokesperson for Enbrel and did not want to be seen to be promoting minocycline (that we know she takes)? Or, was she afraid of being accused of promoting Enbrel as a paid spokesperson on TV and does her contract limit that? I guess we will never know if she also takes Enbrel as well as minocycline, but at the time of the interview she had been in remission for seven years (see below). We do know she takes mino, though, and her doc is Dr. T., according to other news articles. Seems she discovered it after some years of being on other drugs…and alcohol to numb the pain….and she was pretty fearful of the currently-used DMARDs (methotrexate, gold salts and prednisone, which she remarks later caused her to gain weight and have terrible rage):

“KING: How do you explain to yourself the ups and downs of your life? The alcoholism, you come back from it.

TURNER: Yeah. Well, a lot of that came sort of in a progression, you know, hindsight as many things do in hindsight makes some sense. When I was finally diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, it was before the last seven years in which we had developed some extraordinary medications which have kept meet in remission, you know, for the last seven years.

But at that time, the medications were almost as dangerous as the acute disease. Prednisone and gold and metha — just appalling, appalling things. So I was feeling very hopeless about being able to go on with my passion, my life, my acting. And they told me I would be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. And I was darned if I was going to accept anything like that. In any case, after several years of this sort of chronic pain, I discovered that alcohol helped kill pain.

Now, for some obscure and ridiculous reason, I didn’t want to take painkillers because I think they would muck up my mind. Now, if somebody will ever be able to explain that to me, I’d appreciate it. Right. For some reason, one was all right and the other wasn’t.”

[suera]

I’ve never seen her advertise for Enbrel, has anyone?
sue/ra

[Maz]

@sue/ra wrote:

I’ve never seen her advertise for Enbrel, has anyone?

Hi Sue,

Advertising has become a subtle practice these days….rather than stating a drug name, according to the following article, a website “for support” is mentioned by the celebrity on television and other media sources, which is owned by a pharmaceutical marketing company. Viewers contact the “support group” and are then sent drug pamphlets in the mail.

In the case of Kathleen Turner, she was contracted by Wyeth/Immunex, who makes Enbrel, to tout their “support group,” called RA Access. Some celebrities make huge six-figure sums for just tweeting about certain websites or products, these days. The following interview with Diane Sawyer took place in 2002:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/jul/23/health.lifeandhealth

“”You’re still in pain?” Sawyer asked. “Well,” Turner responded, “as they say: only when you walk.”

Turner then went on to mention a website, http://www.ra-access.com, where fellow sufferers could get help. Sawyer eagerly repeated the site’s address in case viewers missed it.

All of this would have been your standard bit of talk-show chitchat if Turner had not been paid by two drug companies to speak out about her illness. “She gets a fee,” confirms Robin Shapiro, a spokeswoman for Immunex, a bio-pharmaceutical company, which along with fellow pharmaceutical giant Wyeth, funded a media campaign for which Turner was hired to do a number of TV and print interviews.

The two companies jointly manufacture an arthritis drug called Enbrel. They also happen to operate the website that Turner and Sawyer plugged as so helpful to arthritis sufferers. The site is a marketing tool for Immunex and Wyeth. Visitors are asked to supply personal information, which, according to Shapiro, is used to send them promotional materials on Enbrel, a drug that competes with many others in the multi-billion-dollar market for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

This kind of below-the-radar media campaign, which blurs the line between drug advertising and public service efforts, is now rampant. And increasingly crucial to the success of these carefully orchestrated blitzes are celebrities willing – for a price – to pour their hearts out about how they or a close relative have struggled with a particular illness.”

So, one might not see the celebrity’s smiling face in a magazine drug ad, but these celebrities just have to mention a particular website and they’re fulfilling their contract to the drug company. This kind of advertising is usually hidden in interviews for books, movies or plays celebrity’s are touting.

Further down in the article, it explains how this works in a bit more depth:

“But, as one marketer for the drug industry puts it, “There was a backlash.” It occurred to consumers and advocacy groups that it could be dangerous for trusted public figures to recommend drugs with serious side effects. In some cases, celebrities with transparent links to drug companies saw their reputations seriously tarnished.

So the drug companies tried a different tack – celebrity-driven public-awareness campaigns that obscured the financial relationship between the star and the drug company, while allowing both parties to avoid any talk of side effects or potential problems with the drug. With all hints of drugs and money hidden from view, celebrities were again willing to sign up, taking fees of as much as $1m to do a raft of television and newspaper interviews in which they spoke about a particular illness and urged sufferers to seek treatment.

For the most part, the celebrities don’t mention their sponsor or its product by name, but instead urge people to go and see their doctors about the latest treatments, or, in the case of Turner, suggest that viewers or readers visit a specific website.

This approach allows the drug companies and their celebrity hirelings to insist that they’re doing a public service, not to mention providing the public with compelling human-interest stories and sneak peeks into the private lives of the stars.”

Clever, huh?

Hope all is well with you, Sue!

[suera]

Thanks Maz…you know everything!! RA wise I’m doing okay, started LDN. Sadly tinnitus, probably from Enbrel or MTX is driving me insane, but you can’t have everything! Hope you are well.
Sue

[Jan Lucinda1]

Melody Petersen in her book, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked theNation on Prescription Drugs says in the epilogue, p.331

Stop the covert marketing of drugs, which is far more effective than the industry’s advertisements.

The FDA must change the drug marketing rules to stop companies from hiring celebrities to endorse their products or talk about health matters with the public. America’s fascination with celebrities makes it impossible for a Hollywood star or a sports hero to talk about a drug without leaving an impression that is some kind of panacea.

[Maz]

@sue/ra wrote:

RA wise I’m doing okay, started LDN. Sadly tinnitus, probably from Enbrel or MTX is driving me insane, but you can’t have everything!

Sue, glad to hear you’re doing okay RA-wise! 🙂 I remember what a struggle it had been for you with your young ‘uns and do hope you’re able to keep up with them now. I’m so sorry to hear about your tinnitus…my grandfather suffered from this for years and it drove him nuts. He fought in rat-infested trenches during WWI, so who knows what he picked up or the damage his ears suffered from the heavy artillery.

Has anyone been able to provide any answers to you on the tinnitus? I was looking on Wiki and methotrexate is listed as causing this side-effect, but so many other things can cause it, too…e.g. anemia and B12 deficiency. Am sure you must have done loads of research to figure this out already, though, and do hope you can.

Jan – interesting quote – thanks for sharing. 🙂

[suera]

Hi Maz,

Your poor grandfather, I can so relate. I thought RA was bad, and of course it is but it’s physical pain rather than the emotional distress and desperation from tinnitus, I have truly felt on was teetering on the edge more often than not in the beginning, now I’ll have days but I am slowly habituating. In my heart I do think it was from MTX but the damage is done. I’ve tried everything to be rid of it, acupuncture, hypnosis, cranio sacrotherapy, b12-magnisium-vit D-zinc- Chelation-PT-EFT, tested for Lyme and of course diet, I’m afraid the damage is done and nothing can really “cure” it. Of course it’s another condition that people just say, “yeah so?” ugh, frustrating but thanks to RA I’m used to that response.

I am trying to keep up with my boys, even without RA who can do that?! When ra first came on, I wasn’t able to do much, I remember going to their baseball games and not being able to clap, and I could only stay a few innings, this year both my sons played football and I was able to go to the games, stay for the whole thing and CLAP, clap loudly!! It’s really the little things you appreciate.

How are you doing?

Sue

[richie]

Hi– I was up at DR T’s about one year after he treated Kathleen Turner —-she took minocin and Celebrex -thats it —-Dr T is not an advocate of supplements at all –sooooo thats all she took !!!!! —Wyeth would not have paid any money for her being a spokeperson for Minocin -(they were the manufacturer of both drugs } –I see nothing wrong with her peddling Enbrel —of course it was for the money –nothing at all wrong with that imo —-How many celebs are on the tubes etc every day pushing something –its part of the American way –so lets cut her a break —-
richie

[MINOCINMAN]

@richie wrote:

Hi– I was up at DR T’s about one year after he treated Kathleen Turner —-she took minocin and Celebrex -thats it —-Dr T is not an advocate of supplements at all –sooooo thats all she took !!!!! —Wyeth would not have paid any money for her being a spokeperson for Minocin -(they were the manufacturer of both drugs } –I see nothing wrong with her peddling Enbrel —of course it was for the money –nothing at all wrong with that imo —-How many celebs are on the tubes etc every day pushing something –its part of the American way –so lets cut her a break —-
richie

i would respectfully disagree Richie from the standpoint that people will view the Super Rich endorsing something with the False Assumption: Well if she is using it with all her money and access to the best doctors and treatment options, etc, then it must be good.

These drugs as we all know can be toxic to point of bringing one to death, so for them to endorse a product that they do not even use is unconscionable and should be outlawed.

I do agree that if all they were endorsing was a harmless “WIDGET”, where at worse someone was wasting money on a product, then there is no risk to ones health, just there pocketbook.

This is especially terrible because they are preying on very sick people, often with limited education, so they laws should protect them from such deceptive marketing practices.

I am all for the free market system, but when it comes to healthcare and asick people the government should have very careful controls in place to prevent doctors, celebrities, etc and pharm companies from steering products to unwary consumers that are not necessarily the best for them.

[Kats]

Eloquently put, Minocinman.

[Maz]

@sue/ra wrote:

I thought RA was bad, and of course it is but it’s physical pain rather than the emotional distress and desperation from tinnitus, I have truly felt on was teetering on the edge more often than not in the beginning, now I’ll have days but I am slowly habituating. In my heart I do think it was from MTX but the damage is done. I’ve tried everything to be rid of it, acupuncture, hypnosis, cranio sacrotherapy, b12-magnisium-vit D-zinc- Chelation-PT-EFT, tested for Lyme and of course diet, I’m afraid the damage is done and nothing can really “cure” it. Of course it’s another condition that people just say, “yeah so?” ugh, frustrating but thanks to RA I’m used to that response.

I am trying to keep up with my boys, even without RA who can do that?! When ra first came on, I wasn’t able to do much, I remember going to their baseball games and not being able to clap, and I could only stay a few innings, this year both my sons played football and I was able to go to the games, stay for the whole thing and CLAP, clap loudly!! It’s really the little things you appreciate.

Sue, thanks for sharing your news and glad to hear you are back to enjoying your boys and their activities, pain-free – really brought a tear to my eye, hearing you could clap again! I wish I knew of something to help your tinnitus, but if I come across anything while researching, I’ll let you know…sounds like you’ve tried so much already. I know it can be absolutely awful…all-consuming.

Thanks also for asking about me…I think my LLMD might have a bit of a sadist streak (only kidding!), as he has me on some long pulses to trick out the bugs and it’s working very, very well! My good days are like I have no RA, at all, now…but when those herxes hit, they are hitting big-time. I’m hoping that this might be heralding getting closer to remission….the promise of those good days is keeping me going. Treating chronic Lyme & co. is a pretty tough road, no doubt about it, and there is no way to put a nice face on it. Like you, I don’t know if I could have done it with young ones and deeply empathise, Sue. I’m glad you still stop by here and hope that when the kids are older you might be able to make a return to AP and give it another try.

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