How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#141

Post by Broken_Hippo » Fri, May 07, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

moksly wrote: post #97

naturalauction wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patients and doctors need to know about a medicine to prescribe it. In order to increase brand awareness, drug companies can either advertise to or incentivize (free trips to conferences, consulting gigs) doctors to prescribe a drug or get patients to directly ask their doctor for a drug.

Do doctors prescribe brands in America? Here they’ll prescribe you with the working substance, and unless it’s still patented (which most of them aren’t) then you’ll just get offered the cheapest brand at the pharmacy by default. I guess commercials would still work if you branded yourself hard enough, but our culture is more like the Velcro thing, where when people ask for a “panodil” or a “pinex” they don’t really…

Sometimes they do, but often they tell the pharmacy that they can use the generic (and most folks seem to want generic). Occasionally, they insist on the brand, but this is more often because while most generics are the same, sometimes there are differences. Lithium, used as a mood stabilizer, is the example I can think of, but is far from the only one.

More people want brand name for over the counter - like panodil/pinex - but sometimes this is because folks don't realize that the generic is the same drug.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#142

Post by bmj » Fri, May 07, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

thomasedwards wrote: post #3

dools wrote: post #2

The article seems to suggest this is a bad thing, but my first reaction is "fantastic". Pharmaceutical companies create life saving medicines and then use advanced social media targeting to locate the people that need them. The only bad thing about it is if those people targeted can't afford the medication, which is why healthcare needs to be a universal right. People love to bitch about Big Pharma but I have a magic…

Or, I go to a doctor, who is a medically trained professional, and they prescribe a medicine to me based on their experience and training, without any incentive for financial reward?

without any incentive for financial reward?

Except when they do get financial rewards?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/health/insys-trial-verdic...

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#143

Post by toast0 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

lozenge wrote: post #4

dools wrote: post #2

The article seems to suggest this is a bad thing, but my first reaction is "fantastic". Pharmaceutical companies create life saving medicines and then use advanced social media targeting to locate the people that need them. The only bad thing about it is if those people targeted can't afford the medication, which is why healthcare needs to be a universal right. People love to bitch about Big Pharma but I have a magic…

You appear to be assuming the advertisement medically benefits a patient. I don't believe there's any evidence for this and ads for prescription drugs are banned almost globally for good reason. "Ask your doctor about" may bias the doctor away from a different drug that is more appropriate but has a lower profit margin, for example.

There's some benefit to the patient if the drug is effective treatment for a condition they knew they had but didn't know there was treatment for. Or if it's a new thing that treats something where the old treatment didn't work well or had bothersome side effects for the patient.

Major new drugs may get news coverage or may be brought up if a doctor sees something on your chart at a checkup, but ads may (or may not) reach more people.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#144

Post by kfarr » Fri, May 07, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

SargeZT wrote: post #131

meowster wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you categorically say that is untrue while not providing any evidence to the contrary, but in fact confirm the other person's observations? Essentially: they said commercials have A and B, you said that's untrue because comercials have to have A, B, and C.

The OP said 'generic symptoms.' There are no prescription drugs for 'generic symptoms', they must have a specific approved use and they must be mentioned verbally in the commercial. Here is the evidence to the contrary: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/prescription-drug-advertising/pres...

Yeah but let's be real, while the "specific approved use" might be clear to a medical practitioner in a journal write-up related to FDA approval, the actual prescription ads shown to normal people attempt to use as general simple wording as possible to describe symptoms. To laypeople these start to blur together to very simple statements like "feeling tired? Worried about excessive weight gain?" While these might be symptoms of a specific FDA approved use of the drug, it results in an atmosphere of confusion for normal folks.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#145

Post by Arrath » Fri, May 07, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

anjel wrote: post #140

gerdesj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace the word patient with customer or "money".

I work in a (California) medical facility. "Patient" is now a deprecated if not archaic term, no longer used. Patients are now properly referred to as "clients" for at least 5 years now.

While it's all semantics in the world of business speak and HR, this feels to me like it orients the relationship as any other business transaction.

I want to be a patient, in to see a doctor for diagnosis and/or treatment. I don't want to be a client, I'm not here to iron out a SEO contract.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#146

Post by Accacin » Fri, May 07, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

ju-st wrote: post #95

designium wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it could be similar to the case where Target was able to targets ads to women who did not even know they were pregnant. In this case, the above commenter could be doing things signaling that he may need a will soon due to diseases or life situation that he is not aware of. Or he/she has looked into content similar to those people in need. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The target story is nice anecdote but it's unlikely that they figured out that the daughter is pregnant: https://medium.com/@colin.fraser/target-didnt-figure-out-a-t...

Yeah I can't believe people are still parroting this at all.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#147

Post by toast0 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

durnygbur wrote: post #135

bserge wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that different than any other ads? I'm more sick of car, credit/loans and insurance ads than pharma. I ignore all of them, anyway.

One example is actors looking like doctors advising painkillers as an anwser to back pain or headaches. Together with unavailable public and expensive private healthcare that's quite toxic mixture.

Painkillers are generally effective against back pain or headaches. Much fewer side effects than amputation.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#148

Post by fighterpilot » Fri, May 07, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #139

fighterpilot wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a government that enables it, it's a government that enforces it through laws that guarantee and endow a local monopoly. Whenever you have an endowed monopoly without substitutes, you have extremely high prices. It's econ 101 and will happen 100% of the time (that's why I call it enforcement instead of enablement). If the government just got out of the way, the price of insulin would plummet .

So you think it's an accident that pharma corps make lots more money under the regime enforced by government? Or, possibly the pharma corps have engineered this situation politically (ie 'buying' politicians in some way - campaign donations, advisory jobs, etc). Why else would gov arrange things this way of not at the direct [but covert] behest of the pharma corps? Do you think they're doing it (having overinflated p…

It's as you say - crony capitalism and corporatism. The politicians/government are corrupted and bought by pharma corps to create a situation where competition and the free market is stifled, which leads to high prices as the inevitable consequence. It's a principal-agent problem in the context of having a large state/government with extensive powers to interfere in private business.

You see this playing out everywhere; e.g. agriculture subsidies in rich countries, which just serves as protectionism for domestic farmers at the expense of poor-country farmers. The fundamental causal factor here is the large and powerful state - private, autonomous actors will always try to corrupt and co-opt the state's powers for their own benefit (whether that's farmers, pharma corps, oil companies, hedge funds, tech firms, or whoever), so laying the causal blame at their feet is misguided since their attempts to do so are inevitable. It's a government problem.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#149

Post by robbiep » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

murukesh_s wrote: post #62

robbiep wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely not true in most countries. Where I practice you can get into big trouble for this. You have do declare pharma affiliations, cannot accept sponsorship and the age of junkets through drug companies is long in the past. I could be deregistered if I was found to be accepting anything (travel, hotels, conferences) and not declaring it

Wondering which country you are? can add it to the bucket list of countries to retire in.

Australia. This is the rule in most developed world economies, although I have to admit complete ignorance of the US (... the largest developed world economy)

I was invited once, by another doctor, to speak (paid gig, curtin closer) at a conference being put on by a pharmaceutical company. It was on digital health and the company I think may have had an interest in anaesthetic drugs or supplies or possibly it was surgical - (I’ve just trawled my records and without spending an hour or more I don’t think I’m going to find it) either way there were lots of Anesthetists and surgeons there, mostly because for only $100 they could knock off 20 CPD points by coming and listening to something half interesting in a nice venue for a while and get a meal and catch up with each other.

I had to fill out pages of forms with the company to get paid, firmly renounce that I would be promoting any drug or product, resolve to declare my affiliation with them for a minimum of 12 months, etc etc (this was in around 2018).

The company’s logo was on the pull out banners and the projection screens obviously but there wasn’t even a hint of drug or product anywhere in the room. No tote bag, just some mints and the pad and pen.

The ethical bar has been raised so high that medical companies are now reduced to running paid conferences on adjacencies that clinicians may possibly be interested in, that align with their college’s professional development goals, and can’t even mention their products!

So why do they even do it anymore? I pondered this as I filled out my forms - I believe it is due to residual infrastructure and marketing apparatus and budgets from the days when they could offer the world. Now they’re like vestigial organs, floundering to maintain purpose but knowing that a KPI is eyeballs on logos

The kicker is, if it was anaesthetics, there are only probably 2 makers of sevofluorane in the world anyway!

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#150

Post by frosted-flakes » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:13 PM UTC

Arrath wrote: post #145

anjel wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in a (California) medical facility. "Patient" is now a deprecated if not archaic term, no longer used. Patients are now properly referred to as "clients" for at least 5 years now.

While it's all semantics in the world of business speak and HR, this feels to me like it orients the relationship as any other business transaction. I want to be a patient, in to see a doctor for diagnosis and/or treatment. I don't want to be a client, I'm not here to iron out a SEO contract.

See also "passenger" vs "customer" on transit systems.