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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1210
Side Effects, movie, Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau re the pharmaceutical
industry: Murray 2005.09.03

From: "roseallen99" <roseallen99@...>
To: <drugawareness@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [drugawareness] Movie: "Side Effects":
Interview with Kathleen Slattery, director/producer
Date: Saturday, September 03, 2005 4:14 PM

The movie, "Side Effects", written, directed and produced by Kathleen
Slattery is a romantic comedy with a serious message. The
message: "Beware the Pharmaceutical Industry".

The national distribution of this independent film is scheduled for
opening night in Dallas, Texas on Friday, September 9th at the
Angelika Theater. For information on how to attend the Premier
Opening of this film click here.

http://www.angelikafilmcenter.com/Dallas/homepage.asp

I was fortunate to interview Kathleen Slattery about the making of
the film. Here is the interview:

RA: How did it happen that you wrote the script for this film.

KS: During the ten years that I worked for the pharmaceutical
industry, I was writing this script. I felt I should record what was
happening. I started with the industry at the age of 23. I had a
Bachelors degree in Political Science. This was the extent of my
education in science.

RA: You also directed and produced this film, then.

KS: Yes, I was very intent on getting out this message.

RA: I have heard that many in the audience are absolutely captivated
by this film. When I viewed it last night, the film received a
considerable amount of applause.

KS: I tried to capture the essence of what it was like to work as a
pharmaceutical representative. The movie is also a romance and it
depicts the ambivalent feelings the main character has while working
for the industry. On the one hand, she wants to quit her job and
marry a man who was a former pharmaceutical sales representative and
who knew what the industry was like. On the other hand, she is
enticed by the generous salary and enormous perks obtained by
continuing as a sales representative. When she realizes that the
company she works for is going to market an antidepressant with the
known side effect of liver failure, her life begins to unravel. The
comic parts of the movie help reduce the tension in approaching such
a grim subject.

RA: Since we don't want to give away the ending of this fantastic
movie, can you tell me in what cities the movie will be showing after
the Dallas Premier.

KS: http://sideeffectsthemovie.com/showtimes/
gives a listing of the next showings around the country.

RA: After the film was shown last night, you answered many questions
from the audience. I found this very interesting.

KS: I plan to follow the film across the country and answer
questions at the end of each showing. I will do this, at least, for
the first several months.

RA: Will you write and produce another movie about the pharmaceutical
industry?

KS: My next movie will be about Marriage. I do plan, though, to
continue following the issues which involve the pharmaceutical
industry. In fact, I was in a Forum with Dr. David Graham of the FDA
and this information is available at the Public Library of Science
{PLoS}. I explained how companies bought doctors' prescribing records
so drug representatives knew "to the dime" what drugs doctors were
prescribing and could tailor their marketing to them.

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-
document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020209

RA: Will it be difficult to show your movie in theaters across the
country given the powerful influence the pharmaceutical companies
have in this nation.

KS: I don't expect it to hurt the distribution of the film in movie
theaters. However, when it is released to Cable and regular TV,
there may be a problem getting it aired due to network reliance on
the monies coming in from pharmaceutical advertising.

RA: Will your film eventually be released on DVD.

KS: Yes, and the DVD will contain extra information on the practices
of the pharmaceutical industry.

RA: Since our readership involves people who are wanting information
on the side effects of prescription drugs, is there any personal
message you could give them.

KS: It is extremely important for the general public and for all
physicians to be aware of how the pharmaceutical industry operates.
Much of the film, "Side Effects" is devoted to this issue. I would
hope that people become more educated about these facts.

RA: Thank you, Kathleen, for the interview.
______________________________________________________
For more information on, "Side Effects", go to:

http://sideeffectsthemovie.com/home.shtml

http://www.mo-info.com/wordpress/index.php blog

Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau Director@...

Holly Mosher Producer@...

To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/drugawareness/

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
drugawareness-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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http://www.pharmamanufacturing.com/articles/2005/318.html

Saturday, September 3, 2005

Hollywood, Pharma and the Side Effects of Bad Press
An onslaught of bad P.R. might actually help Big Pharma.
By Gregg Carlstrom, Contributor

It's been a tough year in the court of public opinion for pharmaceutical
companies.
A few well-publicized drug safety issues have hurt the industry's
credibility.
Michael Moore is planning a feature-length documentary that, presumably,
will have nothing good to say about drug companies.
Another feature film, an adaptation of the book
"Hard Sell: Evolution of a Viagra Salesman,"
will likely portray some unethical drug marketing practices.

And a third film, "Side Effects," set to be released in theaters this
September, takes a similarly unflinching look
at the life and work of a drug sales representative.

Is there any good that can come out of all this bad press?
The director of "Side Effects," Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, seems to think
so.

A former sales rep herself, Slattery-Moschkau says she left the business
after 10 years "for my own sanity."
Her film documents her decade in the industry;
she describes the movie as fiction, but based largely on her own
experiences.

"I captured these moments from my career where I felt like,
'Am I on "Candid Camera" here? Are we really being told to do this?'"
she said in a phone interview.
"The industry people who have seen it and come up to me afterward
felt like it was pretty dead-on."

Katherine Heigl (Photo courtesy of IMDB.com)

"Side Effects" stars Katherine Heigl as Karly Hert, a sales rep working
to promote a new fictional antidepressant, Vivexx.
Hert grows increasingly easy about the company's marketing tactics,
which promote the drug as the next "big thing" while ignoring its side
effects.
Eventually, she decides to retire in six months;
in the interim, she will sell drugs by telling doctors the whole truth.
To her surprise, her sales numbers skyrocket,
and she finds it even more difficult to leave the company.

Slattery-Moschkau says Hert's experiences mirror her own.
She says she wanted to quit the industry many times,
but there were too many incentives to stay.

"Financially, it's a damn good job," she said.
"You get offered good pay and a company car.
and every time I felt like I wanted to walk away, I got a raise.
And I found myself constantly rationalizing away why I'm staying."

A look in the mirror

Presumably, the impending release of "Side Effects" and
the two other movies based on the pharmaceutical industry
is making many people nervous.
Will these films be an even-handed portrayal of sales practices,
an honest attempt to hold a mirror up to the industry?
Or will they all become one-sided rants?

"I hope that some solutions can come out of this," Slattery-Moschkau said.
"In the past, these issues have been raised, and the industry says,
'well, we'll do some things differently,' and it just sort of blows over.
But this is as big as I've ever seen it."

Slattery-Moschkau says she understands why drug companies market
as aggressively as they do. A Lehman Brothers study found the average
sales rep, detailed to primary-care doctors, generates about $1.9m
in sales annually, according to The Economist. Do the math:
a thousand sales reps translate into almost two billion dollars a year
for drug companies.

So there is certainly an economic incentive for drug companies.
And for the sales reps themselves, Slattery-Moschkau notes,
a good salary isn't the only draw.

"I think that none of us could do this job unless we felt deep down
we were doing some public good," she said. "And I think the
pharmaceutical industry can certainly do some things to serve the public.
there are just a lot of problems."

Several times in our interview, Slattery-Moschkau mentioned
this uneasy dichotomy in pharmaceutical manufacturing:
companies driven by the noble desire to help patients,
but also the day-to-day demands of shareholders and profit margins.

Controversial practices

Another area of drug marketing under fire lately is direct-to-consumer
advertising, a tactic fairly unique to the American market
(New Zealand is the only other developed country that allows the practice).
Here, too, she says, drug companies often perform a public service.

"The ads do help educate patients on those issues," she said.
"A patient may have had undiagnosed depression for years,
and suddenly they see the symptoms being rattled off on TV,
and they have an awakening."

The problem, Slattery-Moschkau said, is that direct advertising often
is motivated by something other than a desire to educate the consumer.
Her film does not address consumer advertising
(it would be a "whole new segment"); but, she said, as a filmmaker herself,
she thinks pharmaceutical advertisements
play too much with consumers' emotions.

"I know the intent of that company is ultimately to drive market share.
People emotionally respond to ads that sometimes are not in their best
interests."

Wake-up call for doctors

The other benefit to a movie like "Side Effects," says Slattery-Moschkau,
is that it serves as a wake-up call for doctors.
Like Jamie Reidy, author of "Evolution of a Viagra Salesman,"
Slattery-Moschkau had no science training when she became a sales rep;
nonetheless, doctors trusted her to provide information
about her company's drugs.

"I'm a political science major who probably had no business
being in the room with a doctor, even though I was pretty well-trained
on my drug and my disease state," she said.
"I was hired basically to repeat my well-rehearsed pitch."

Slattery-Moschkau said, in her experience, she rarely encountered
sales reps with a medical background: one nurse and one pharmacist
in her ten years working in the industry. The rest, she said, like her,
came from business or liberal arts backgrounds,
with no real relevant experience. And she wants doctors to be aware
of that next time a drug rep is trying to push a product.

"Part of the goal of the film is to help raise the level of awareness,
even with physicians. doctors need to understand who these people
are in front of them, that they're just giving a pitch to
drive more market share for their particular drug," she said.

"Embrace this as an opportunity"

It is surely a tough time for the pharmaceutical industry right now,
but Slattery-Moschkau views all that as an opportunity,
at least for those companies willing to make some changes.
For a good place to start, she recommends pharmaceutical executives
take a good look at some of the criticisms of their industry
(like, for example, her movie).

"If they can roll with it [the movie] a little bit, it might allow them
to see the industry in a way that lets them make some changes,
and make things better. better for consumers, patients, doctors,
and for themselves," she said.
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Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@... 505-501-2298
1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505 USA
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 147 members, 1,210 posts in a public, searchable archive

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1186
aspartame induces lymphomas and leukaemias in rats, free full plain text, M
Soffritti, F Belpoggi, DD Esposti, L Lambertini, 2005 April, 2005.07.14:
main results agree with their previous methanol and formaldehyde studies,
Murray 2005.09.03

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1185
Ramazzini Institute (Italy) lifetime study with 1800 rats shows aspartame at
human use levels causes cancer (methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid), M
Soffritti and F Belpoggi: Felicity Lawrence, The Guardian (UK): Murray
2005.07.15

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1189
Michael F Jacobson of CSPI now and in 1985 re aspartame toxicity, letter to
FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford; California OEHHA aspartame critique
2004.03.12; Center for Consumer Freedom denounces CSPI: Murray 2004.07.27

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1045
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/scf2002-response.htm
Mark Gold exhaustively critiques European Commission Scientific
Committee on Food re aspartame ( 2002.12.04 ): 59 pages, 230 references

http://www.HolisticMed.com/aspartame mgold@...
Aspartame Toxicity Information Center Mark D. Gold
12 East Side Drive #2-18 Concord, NH 03301 603-225-2100
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/abuse/methanol.html
"Scientific Abuse in Aspartame Research"

Gold points out that industry methanol assays were too insensitive to
properly measure blood methanol levels. ]

Fully 11% of aspartame is methanol-- 1,120 mg aspartame in 2 L diet soda,
almost six 12-oz cans, gives 123 mg methanol (wood alcohol). If 30% of
the methanol is turned into formaldehyde, the amount of formaldehyde is 18
times the USA EPA limit for daily formaldehyde in drinking water, 2 mg in 2
L water.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/835
ATSDR: EPA limit 1 ppm formaldehyde in drinking water July 1999:
Murray 2002.05.30 rmforall

Aspartame is made of phenylalanine (50% by weight) and aspartic acid (39%),
both ordinary amino acids, bound loosely together by methanol (wood alcohol,
11%). The readily released methanol from aspartame is within hours turned
by the liver into formaldehyde and then formic acid, both potent, cumulative
toxins.


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1182
Joining together: short review: research on aspartame (methanol,
formaldehyde, formic acid) toxicity: Murray 2005.07.08 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1071
research on aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid) toxicity: Murray
2004.04.29 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1143
methanol (formaldehyde, formic acid) disposition: Bouchard M et al, full
plain text, 2001: substantial sources are degradation of fruit pectins,
liquors, aspartame, smoke: Murray 2005.04.02 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1131
genotoxicity of aspartame in human lymphocytes 2004.07.29 full plain text,
Rencuzogullari E et al, Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey 2004 Aug: Murray
2004.11.06 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1088
Murray, full plain text & critique: chronic aspartame in rats affects
memory, brain cholinergic receptors, and brain chemistry, Christian B,
McConnaughey M et al, 2004 May: 2004.06.05 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1067
eyelid contact dermatitis by formaldehyde from aspartame, AM Hill & DV
Belsito, Nov 2003: Murray 2004.03.30 rmforall

Thrasher (2001): "The major difference is that the Japanese demonstrated
the incorporation of FA and its metabolites into the placenta and fetus.
The quantity of radioactivity remaining in maternal and fetal tissues
at 48 hours was 26.9% of the administered dose." [ Ref. 14-16 ]

Arch Environ Health 2001 Jul-Aug; 56(4): 300-11.
Embryo toxicity and teratogenicity of formaldehyde. [100 references]
Thrasher JD, Kilburn KH. toxicology@...
Sam-1 Trust, Alto, New Mexico, USA.
http://www.drthrasher.org/formaldehyde_embryo_toxicity.html full text

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/939
aspartame (aspartic acid, phenylalanine) binding to DNA:
Karikas July 1998: Murray 2003.01.05 rmforall
Karikas GA, Schulpis KH, Reclos GJ, Kokotos G
Measurement of molecular interaction of aspartame and
its metabolites with DNA. Clin Biochem 1998 Jul; 31(5): 405-7.
Dept. of Chemistry, University of Athens, Greece
http://www.chem.uoa.gr gkokotos@...
"K.H. Schulpis" <inchildh@...> "G.J. Reclos" reklos@...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1052
DMDC: Dimethyl dicarbonate 200mg/L in drinks adds methanol 98 mg/L
[ becomes formaldehyde in body ]: EU Scientific Committee on Foods
2001.07.12: Murray 2004.01.22 rmforall
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