The Pharmaceutical Industry Tries to Advance Its Own PR Agenda
A “novel” project goes awry
Pharma’s Pulp-fiction Profit Plot, part two
In the last Daily Dose, I set the stage for a story so surreal and shocking it may never get the coverage it deserves from the drug-loving mainstream. It’s the stranger-than-fiction tale of a pharmaceutical-biz puppet-group’s (PhRMA) alleged attempt to commission a mainstream pulp-fiction “Islamic terrorists tainted drug” thriller to advance its own PR agenda: Namely, to dissuade Americans from buying cheap prescription drugs from neighboring Canada. Back to the story
The reason anyone even knows about this story at all is basically because of one age-old staple of the literary world: Creative differences between artist and patron. According to one of the novel’s authors (Kenin Spivak), the first draft of this faux-novel fell quite a bit short of what the work’s commissioners thought it should be – despite the editorial guidance of a man known far and wide for his skill at writing fiction, disgraced New York Times star reporter Jayson Blair!
That’s right, believe it or not, this shameless work was initially edited by none other than the most notorious prevaricator in the history of journalism (if that doesn’t tell you something right there, I don’t know what would).
But that’s just the BEGINNING of the story. In an NPR interview, Spivak claims that PhRMA maintained final approval of the novel, and wanted the book “dumbed down for women” (his words, not mine!). They also wanted to morph the terrorists into Muslims who’s motivation was greed instead of the more logical politics – and to ratchet up the American death toll in the story.
Despite misgivings on the part of the authors, these changes were allegedly made to the text. But Spivak claims the final manuscript still did not please PhRMA (who staunchly maintain they never commissioned the book in the first place), so they nixed the project. End of story either way, right?
Not exactly. Again, according to the book’s authors, before washing their hands of the novel project, PhRMA – or the “consultant” attorney handling the project from behind a curtain of plausible deniability – tried to get the authors to sign an agreement that they’d never say anything about the project, or ANYTHING NEGATIVE about the pharmaceutical industry. Ever.
But apparently the $100,000 payoff this sleaze-ball allegedly dangled in front of them wasn’t enough of a carrot, so the authors decided to market their book elsewhere and go public with the story. Here’s where this twisted saga gets EVEN BETTER
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Prosaic justice
Perhaps because they don’t like being bribed, or perhaps because the hush money wasn’t enough, or perhaps because they think their book’s worth publishing – but for whatever reason, the authors of the original commissioned-by-PhRMA’s-shadow novel secured a new publishing deal on their own, and the finished book, called The Karasik Conspiracy, is due on bookstore shelves this December.
But a few key plot elements have been changed. The biggest one is this: Now, the story features a terrorist attack funded and engineered by a pharmaceutical company!
That’s right: They made the drug makers into terrorist arch-villains.
Beautiful, huh? Even if this is the worst novel ever written (and having published a work of fiction or two myself, I’m actually pretty well qualified to judge), I’ll still be first in line to get a copy of it. Something about the genesis of the whole project makes it necessary on some level or another. Call it evidence of poetic justice if you will.
Of course, the high muckety-mucks at PhRMA vehemently deny commissioning this work, or even approving it. They claim that their own maverick “consultant” pitched one of their low-level people the idea and hired the authors himself, and it evolved from there off their radar. According to the WashingtonPost.com article on the scandal, PhRMA’s President claims that any related disbursement of monies directly attributable to the organization were for “research,” any information strictly for background
But then, they would say this, now that the project has blown up in their faces.
As for drug-industry-sponsored fiction, it’s nothing new. Anyone who follows their interactions with Congress or the FDA, or who sees one of their slick prime-time ads for some killer medication or another already knows they spin a hell of a yarn.
Relishing this pulp friction,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
