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"Mark Probert
<snip>
> john wrote:
<snip>
WARNING: Industry is Blogging These NewsGroups to Protect Their
Monopolies
To : All participants and readers of sci.med, misc.health.alternative,
uk.people.health, talk.politics.medicine
Please be aware that many comments and responses posted to this forum
are not those of casual posters interested in an honest exchange. A
number of individuals with ties to industry are engaging an effort to
shape public sentiment about the risks of mainstream medicine while
attacking the benefits and validity of natural medicine. I refer to
these individuals broadly as "Pharma Bloggers"(*see footnote). Pharma
Bloggers on usenet don't promote a specific company or product, as
might be the case with standard "blogging" on a weblog. There is,
however, a common thread between industry blogging in a web blog and
industry participation in a newsgroup: both are done under the pretense
that the poster is not professionally affiliated. Most of these people
are likely to have an association with a PR project whose "blogging"
efforts are underwritten anonymously by the media or marketing groups
of industry. They are not difficult to identify due to specific
patterns of behaviour in posting. Please familiarize yourself with
these tactics so you can identify them.
What to look for while participating in usenet newsgroups:
1. Pharma Bloggers on usenet use intimidation, mockery, and insults to
silence those who express belief or interest in natural medicine. They
actively discourage a scientific discussion and disrupt ongoing
discussions that explore alternative treatments in healthcare.
2. Pharma Bloggers on usenet attack those who question the
effectiveness of mainstream medicine, asserting that disease-management
"healthcare" as the only viable form of treatment. Their comments are
frequently embedded in pseudo-scientific jargon conspicuous for its
lack of corroborating scientific data.
3. Pharma Bloggers on usenet post the majority of their responses
simply to bury the comments of others; they also strive obsessively to
have the last word.
4. Pharma Bloggers on usenet are much faster at posting than casual
participants; they almost always respond first to a new thread,
question, or observation.
5. Pharma Bloggers on usenet use multiple "bloggers" in a swap-&-relay
fashion to create an aura of the "consensus view" in an effort to
isolate posters who question the value of mainstream medicine. You
will see this tactic used more often than any other.
6. Pharma Bloggers on usenet refute numerous quality studies published
in major medical journals showing the benefits of natural medicine
applied in naturopathic healthcare, including nutrient supplementation,
exercise, stress reduction, biofeedback, accupuncture, accupressure,
reflexology, and other approaches. You can find the science supporting
a variety of natural medicine methods at http://www.newstarget.com.
7. Pharma Bloggers on usenet frequently refer readers to
"quack-busting" websites designed to attack natural medicine approaches
and their proponents. Under the guise of "consumer protection," the
extreme bias of these promoters belies their true motives and reveals
their ties to industry.
8. Pharma Bloggers on usenet extol the virtues of various mainstream
medical treatments, citing "evidence based medicine" and the FDA
approval process. They ignore iatrogenic studies showing the dangerous
effects of such treatment (ie., at least 100,000 deaths annually), as
well as a 20% recall for all previously approved drugs, and hundreds of
studies showing a disease relationship to use of pharmaceutical drugs
and other unsafe medical treatments.
9. Pharma Bloggers on usenet insist on the need for an ADE (Adverse
Event) reporting system to monitor dietary supplements, despite the
fact that ADE reporting for pharmaceutical drugs, according to FDA, is
not more than 20% effective. They equally ignore the fact that Poison
Control data show fewer potential adverse reactions from the entire
spectrum of dietary supplements as compared to just ONE popular class
of pharmaceutical drugs -- analgesics (pain killers.) In refuting
well-publicized iatrogenic mortality studies as presented in JAMA and
other medical journals, their demands are equivalent to requiring that
we all wear seat belts sitting in a parked car, while refuting data
showing thousands of traffic deaths resulting from defective seat
belts.
10. Pharma Bloggers on usenet claim that natural medicine practicioners
deny their patients effective mainstream treatment, but ignore data
showing thousands of deaths resulting from defective regulation of the
drug industry. They express little or no concern for the real and
glaring failures on the part of FDA to protect the public, or for the
failure of Big Pharma to perform long-term safety studies on
pharmaceutical drugs before going to market.
Comment: The call for an ineffective ADE reporting system, additional
regulatory oversight, and a classification system that treats nutrients
the same as drugs, is designed to expose dietary supplements to the
market-busting tactics of the drug industry for the purpose of limiting
consumer choice and protecting profits. The pharmaceutical companies
are well aware that more than one-third of all Americans are relying on
some form of natural medicine for their health, a trend that directly
impacts Big Pharma revenues.
Tip: If you find yourself engaging a poster whose defense of mainstream
medicine is unusually dramatic in tone, or inexplicably vicious toward
others, and if that response is an attempt to attack natural medicine,
you can be sure you have stumbled upon a "Pharma Blogger."
Unfortunately, there are more of these individuals posting to usenet on
a daily basis than almost anyone else, which is why I am posting this
alert. If you find it odd that so few people on health-related usenet
newsgroups are expressing an interest in natural medicine, it isn't
because they aren't there, it's because they have been intimidated into
silence. The Pharma Bloggers have over-run the various newsgroups with
their industrial brand of dogma, mockery, and ridicule. Many casual
posters are simply frightened away. That's a primary goal of these
industry-sponsored media grunts, and they are very good at it. Don't
let them win.
* Comment on objections about use of the word "blogging" in this
newsgroup
[vbcol=seagreen]
>From Wikipedia: "An internet forum is not a blog (technically
speaking), but a blog can
function as an internet forum. Internet forums typically allow any user
to post (into the discussion). Blogs typically limit posting to the
blogger or to the blogger and approved others. The distinction between
blogs and forums is sometimes gray. Sites such as Slashdot, Indymedia
and Daily Kos combine elements of the two...many bloggers differentiate
themselves from the mainstream media, while others are members of that
media working through a different channel. Some institutions see
blogging as a means of "getting around the filter" and pushing messages
directly to the public. Some critics worry that bloggers respect
neither intellectual property nor the role of the mass media in
presenting society with credible news."
Also from Wikipedia:
"A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and
displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened
form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or
adding an article to an existing blog is called "blogging". Individual
articles on a blog are called "blog posts," "posts" or "entries". A
person who posts these entries is called a "blogger". A blog comprises
hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio
and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation.
Often blogs focus on a particular "area of interest", such as
Washington, D.C.'s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal
experiences."
While the advent of blogging was preceded by newsgroups, there are more
similiarities in the nature of interaction between posters in these
venues (mainly distinguished by their software platforms) than there
are differences. Also note that I didn't refer to the newsgroup as a
weblog, I referred individual posters as "blogging" on behalf of
industry.
Pharma Blogger: An individual who uses the Internet, and Usenet
newsgroups, to: 1) promote and defend maintstream medicine while
attacking natural medicine approaches; 2) attack others who express a
preference for natural medicine, or who question the value of
mainstream healthcare and disease management; and 3) cite a variety of
junk medical science funded by industry for the purpose of establishing
markets for marginally effective, and often dangerous, medical products
and devices.
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