Debbie Phelps Purged from McNeil's ADHD Moms™ Facebook Group. How Cruel!

[SEE CORRECTION AT END OF THIS POST.]

Back in August, 2008, I asked Debbie Phelps to be my Facebook friend but I never did hear from her, which prompted me to write a post about the ADHD Moms™ Facebook group sponsored by McNeil Pediatrics™, Division of Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a J&J company (see "J&J, Debbie Phelps, You, Me, Facebook: Is This Social Networking?").

At that time, Mrs. Phelps was a "Leader" of the ADHD Moms™ Group. Today, however, she has been purged from is longer part of the site. No longer is she a leader of the group and the article she wrote -- "Back to School: Help Your Child with ADHD Succeed In and Out of the Classroom" -- is not to be found on the site.

How cruel!

I'm not saying that this is punishing the parent for the "sins" of the child, but it's cruel because what Mrs. Phelps is dealing with may be what many parents of children -- even adult children -- with ADHD must deal with! I, for one, would have loved to hear what Debbie's thoughts were on her son's bad bong behavior at a party.

[I admit that I do not know the real reason why Debbie Phelps was "purged" from ADHD Moms™ It may be that she requested that her name and article be removed, but I doubt it [SEE BELOW]. In any case, friends of ADHD Moms™ -- of which I am one -- have not been notified about this. Instead, McNeil Pediatrics posted this notice on the Group page: "ADHD Moms™ has a new look! Facebook has changed its Page design in an effort to improve the user experience. Stay tuned for new features in the coming weeks." Put the blame on Facebook!]

Just so you know: Debbie Phelps still has a Facebook page and the following are typical of messages from other ADHD moms (real moms of kids with ADHD, not ADHD Moms™ Facebook Group members) posted to Debbie's Wall:

"We still love you and Michael too. Just remind him that he is a role model and a beacon for all kids with ADHD. We need for him to take care of himself and to do all that it takes to be in good health." -- Caren W. Madsen, Washington, DC (shown here hugging president Obama who's loving it!).

"I just wanted to show you a little motherly support for what is going on right now. My kids love your son. I am sorry his life is in the spotlight all the time. While I do think he is a role model, it is my job to explain to my children that role models are still human. Humans make mistakes. Best wishes." -- Ann Mitchell Caren, Atlanta, GA

HURRAY for REAL ADHD moms! As opposed to the virtual ADHD Moms™

Too bad McNeil Pediatrics missed an opportunity to REALLY support a real ADHD mom by supporting Debbie Phelps and keeping her involved in the ADHD Moms™ Facebook Group.

"The rise in botched endorsement deals with the likes of Michael Phelps and Chris Brown has marketers rethinking recruiting young, megawatt stars as brand ambassadors, celeb watchers said today at a gathering of top advertisers," claims an article in today's AdvertisingAge ("At Least Elvis Can't Get Caught Smoking Pot").

"One way to hedge your bets: Make a deceased celebrity the face of your brand. They are (for obvious reasons) far less likely to ignite media firestorms with callous behavior."

In the case of McNeil Pediatrics and ADHD Moms™, I think the media "firestorm" over Michael Phelps' pot smoking incident could have been a great opportunity to raise more awareness about ADHD issues.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am no fan of celebrity endorsements of Rx drugs. However, in the case of ADHD Moms™, we're talking about using celebrities for disease awareness promotion, which I don't have too much problem with as long as the celebrity actually has the disease or is related to someone who has the disease or is a caretaker of one. Whatever. You get my point.

-------------------------------
RESPONSE FROM MCNEIL PEDIATRICS:

Debbie Phelps' departure from our ADHD Moms(TM) community was scheduled to occur in January 2009 and to prepare for it, we shared this news with fans in a few ways that month. Starting on January 7, 2009, we sent a notice to our Facebook community fans about Debbie's departure; it was sent to the "Updates" section of fans' personal Facebook pages. It read:

"New Year, New Start!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
New Year, New Start! ADHD Moms will unveil new features and new faces in 2009. This month, Debbie Phelps passes the torch of advocacy to ADHD Moms fans and shares a note of thanks for the memories and support in 2008. Be sure to visit ADHD Moms frequently as we introduce new resources to the community in the coming weeks."

Additionally, from Jan. 7 through Jan. 30, 2009 we posted Debbie's good-bye letter along with a farewell letter to her from our community on our Facebook website homepage.
Thanks, Tricia Geoghegan
McNeil Pediatrics

CNBC Sucks!

Sorry for this off-topic post, but you simply got to see this:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

If it weren't for all the DTC ads shown on the NBC Nightly News, I would switch to Katie Curic over at CBS.

Report from CBI's eMarketing Forum: Taking on the AE Boogey Man

I attended a few more presentations this morning at CBI's 8th Annual Forum on eMarketing for the Pharmaceutical Industry in Princeton, NJ. I missed FDA's presentation on its use of Web 2.0 Communication Channels for Public Health, but I don't think I missed much if I expected to discover from the FDA what is permissible for drug companies to do within those channels.

Jonathan Richman -- an ePharma Pioneer Club member -- pointed out that the FDA can use social media, but pharma companies cannot (see "FDA Uses Social Media, But You Can’t"). Actually, not only can the FDA use social media, it can also do it in a way that violates its own regulations! For example, the FDA is free to post a video about a new drug that they approved WITHOUT including fair balance information! An example is shown below.


It used to be that every time a government official spoke at these conferences they would start off with a little joke: "We're from the government and we're here to help you." I don't think the FDA speaker mentioned that today.

Nevertheless, when the FDA is doing more than pharma companies with social media, "we need to figure out how to get in there," said Stacy Reese, Associate PRA Director at AstraZeneca. She spoke on "Managing the Risks Associated with Online Discussions." Although she did not actually tell the audience how to manage the risks, she did a great job pointing out what the risks are and presented some interesting scenarios to consider.

Specifically, Reese spoke about adverse event reporting (AER) and off-label promotion, the two scariest boogey men that pharma faces in its quest to engage in social media marketing.

[BTW, Reese included a disclaimer that her comments do not represent the views of AstraZeneca and she suggested that each company should determine the best approach to social media that meets its specific business needs.]

Regarding AER, Reese compared a real life sales rep/doctor conversation about an adverse event to a similar conversation held online via a discussion board. Obviously, the sales rep is obligated to report the conversation. While there is no recording or written record of the live conversation, in the case of the discussion board, the conversation is recorded and archived. But how much of it does the FDA require to be submitted on Form 2253?

Although I may not fully understand the distinction, it's questions like these that keep pharma regulatory people awake at night.

The main takeaways from Reese's presentation are (1) there are many social media marketing issues that need to be addressed, and (2) pharma companies must develop standards that tell them how to address these issues before they get too deeply involved. It appears that AZ has thought it all through and has its standards in place. If only they could share them with the rest of us.

What's needed is for a meeting of the minds to mull over all the scenarios mentioned by Reese and decide what the best practices should be. At the table should also be representatives from vendor companies that offer services to pharma as well as patient advocates.

It would also be nice if the FDA were also involved. Unfortunately, the FDA may attend such meetings as an observer, but it won't say whether or not any "best practices" developed will pass regulatory muster. As was pointed out at the conference by several attendees, the FDA can only tell you what you are doing wrong and unless it issues specific "guidance," the agency remains mum about what is the right thing to do when engaged in social media marketing.

Peggy Hamburg to be New FDA Commissioner?

As reported in the Wall Street Journal: "The Obama administration has settled on two public-health experts to fill top posts at the Food and Drug Administration, people familiar with the matter said.

"Margaret 'Peggy' Hamburg, a former health commissioner in New York City, is the leading candidate to become FDA commissioner, the agency's top job, while Baltimore health chief Joshua Sharfstein is in line to become a deputy commissioner, the people said."

She wasn't on anybody's radar when I surveyed readers about who the next FDA Commissioner would be back in the fall!

Report from CBI's eMarketing Forum: Preaching to the Choir

I spent all day yesterday at CBI's 8th Annual Forum on eMarketing for the Pharmaceutical Industry in Princeton, NJ. As usual, I did not know quite what to expect in a year that seems chock full of such "e" conferences here in the US and in Europe (see the PMN Conference Calendar for a complete list of upcoming conferences).

Is supply outstripping demand? Not by the looks of this conference! There were about 100 to 120 people in attendance and I was told about 20% were pharma people -- many of whom were presenters, which was a bonus. This morning I will miss the presentation by the FDA, but I have a "stringer" on site to cover for me.

I did "tweet" from the conference and perhaps the best thing I can do now in the short time I have -- I plan to attend for a few hours today -- is to just list a few things that impressed me. BTW, I think if you tweet too much while attending a conference, you are not able to listen carefully to what is being said. Also, it's very anti-social, IMHO. I enjoy the human interaction and if I'm hunched over my cell phone tweeting or over my laptop "live blogging," then I am putting a wall up between me and other people. Just too nerdy for me!

Speaking of socializing, I like that CBI used a roundtable set up instead of a classroom set up. This allowed groups of people to get to know one another during the conference and not just during lunch. I admit, however, that I picked a sparsely populated table up front and did not take full advantage of the situation.

During the interactive regulatory and compliance roundtable session, I sat at one of the more popular tables that discussed the opportunities and challenges of pharma eMarketing via healthcare provider web sites. Some other roundtables, such as the one focused on Second Life, had no warm bodies at all. I guess they were all online in their virtual world.

I was surprised to hear a lawyer -- Mas Matsuda -- who is Associate General Counsel at Amgen, put forth the idea that pharmaceutical companies should somehow get together and hash out eMarketing guidelines or best practices. At lunch we discussed how this could happen without violating anti-competition laws. Obviously, if pharma companies can get together via PhRMA and draw up guiding principles for TV and print advertising, they should also be able to do that for Internet marketing. We may have to wait for hell to freeze over for that, but it's obvious that companies are developing their own guidelines.

The audience response people from Meridia were at the conference and several speakers polled the audience during their presentations. Matsuda, for example, asked the following question:

"Does your company currently have eMarketing Guidelines?"

To which 48% said Yes, 28% said No, 15% said such guidelines were in the works, and 10% admitted that they simply did not know. There was no breakout according to pharma vs. non-pharma people. I suppose, therefore, that the 28% who said "no" could all be pharma people! More on that later.

Matsuda did ask only pharma attendees to respond to this question:

"Are you currently considering participating in social media for your branded products?"

An amazing 78% said Yes and only 14% said No. I guess pharma attendees to these eMarketing conferences are already "e" evangelists and are hot to trot. Which is the main problem with all these conferences: presenters are preaching to the choir. What we need is a forum that brings together the whole pharma congregation, not just the choir.

Got to go. More later!