WARNING: Industry Is Blogging these NewsGroups to Impact the Public
Discourse on Matters of Public Health
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 attempting to shape
public thinking 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). For obvious
reasons, pharma-bloggers on usenet don't promote a specific company or
product, as might be the case with standard "blogging" on a weblog, but
there is 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 be associated 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
in their posting. Please familiarize yourself with these tactics so
you can identify them.
See:
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2003Q1/monger.html
See:
http://emord.com/stories/cherish.htm
What to look for while participating in usenet newsgroups:
1. Pharmabloggers 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. Pharmabloggers on usenet attack those who question the effectiveness
of mainstream medicine, asserting that disease-management "healthcare"
is the only viable form of treatment. Their comments are frequently
embedded in pseudo-scientific jargon, but without supporting scientific
documentation.
3. Pharmabloggers 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. Pharmabloggers on usenet are much faster at posting than casual
participants; they almost always respond first to a new thread,
question, or observation.
5. Pharmabloggers on usenet use a "pile on" tactic to create an
aura of the "consensus view" in an effort to isolate posters who
disagree with them. You will experience this if you express a belief
in natural medicine or holistic healing. You will also see this tactic
used more often than any other.
6. Pharmabloggers 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. Pharmabloggers 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. Pharmabloggers on usenet rely on junk science references to support
their attacks on natural healing methods. They decline to provide
meaningful scientific references in support of their defense of most
conventional treatments. Since most conventional medicines are either
marginally effective, unproven, or dangerous, it is not suprising that
purely anecdotal or observational studies (usually sponsored by the
drug makers) are the only "science" available to them.
9. Pharmabloggers on usenet assert that conventional medicine is
"evidence based," however the lack of corroborating science disproves
that claim. Chemotherapy drugs, for instance, are unproven in the
majority of cancers, yet FDA permits these drugs to remain in use as
"experimental trial" medications, as has been the case for more
than thirty years. For most cancer patients, there is no proven
benefit in the use of these expensive and toxic chemicals.
10. Pharmabloggers on usenet ignore iatrogenic studies that show the
dangerous side effects of prescription drugs (ie., at least 100,000
deaths annually), as well as a 20% recall for all previously approved
drugs. They also ignore hundreds of studies showing a disease
relationship to use of such drugs and other unsafe medical treatments.
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 PR grunt whose mission is
preventing a critical mass of consumer awareness about disinformation
regarding matters of public health. 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, which is the objective of these PR-sponsored media
grunts.
* 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...A blog is
a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in
reverse chronological order...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 many
similiarities between posters in these venues. Primarily, the two are
distinguished by differences in their software platforms, not by the
uniqueness of published content. Please note that I did not refer to
the newsgroup itself as a weblog, I referred to individual posters as
"blogging" here on behalf of industry. While my focus is on nutrition
and science, the pharmabloggers rely on semantic and personal attacks
in their effort to distract from the real issues.
Pharmablogger: An individual who uses the Internet, and Usenet
newsgroups, to: 1) promote and defend maintstream medicine and disease
management; 2) attack those who express a favorable view of natural
medicine; 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.
Typically, such references are by inference only, so as to avoid
linking directly to promotional material on the drug makers'
websites, which would make their ties to industry too obvious.
WARNING: Industry Is Blogging these NewsGroups to Impact the Public Discourse on Matters of Public Health 