Don
03-30-2007, 01:02 PM
I got back yesterday from meetings in Minnesota. On the flight to Minneapolis (the only city with a name that combines an American Indian and Greek word) I read USA Today, truly one of the worst "newspapers" in the world. [When it was first published I was given a free subscription and I cancelled within a few weeks. My reading shows that its same lack of depth remains. But that's not why I'm writing here.]
There was a full-page ad on page 5A. The very large headline read, "Lipitor reduces risk of heart attach by 36%*"
Now, as I previously was a graphic designer, I'm not going to go into the absolutely horrible design of the headline that featured three fonts, different kerning and tracking on each line (and within each line). I was just interested in the asterisk.
When you go to the small print to explain the asterisk it says, "That means in a large clinical study, 3% of patients taking a sugar pill or placebo had a heart attack compared to 2% of patients taking Lipitor."
Oi vey! Where to begin on this ad?
First, the claim of 36% cherry-picks the data. If you look at the entire number of subjects, the difference is just 1%. What the advertisers illegitimately did what is pull out only the number of people who had heart attacks and ignored all of the other people in the test. That's simply unethical.
Further, what is meant by a "large clinical study?" Are we talking 10,000 subjects or 100? If it's only a few hundred subjects (and no information is given about the risk factors for heart attack that the subjects had),the actual difference of 1% is not scientifically significant.
This ad is outright deceptive.
By that's not all. Just because out of 100 people, one less person who takes Lipitor gets a heart attack than those who take placebos does not mean that Lipitor was responsible for that 1% (not 36%) reduction. To factually make that claim you would have to show the science that shows how Lipitor specifically and directly prevented the heart attack. No such proof is offered. In fact, many scientists say that there is no evidence to show a direct relationship between high cholesterol (which is treated by Lipitor) and heart attack. Rather, they say that the cause is inflamation of the arteries.
The original tests that showed drugs such as Lipitor reduce cholesterol featured a combination of the drug with Coenzyme Q10. Lipitor does not include CoQ10. That's like testing one set of drugs to see how it works and then selling a different formulation.
Finally, it has a recommendation by Dr Robert Jarvik, "Inventor of the Jarvik Artificial Heart." This is false information. Dr. Jarvik did not invent the artificial heart. It was actually invented by Paul Winchell (the ventriloquist who worked with figures Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff and was later the voice for the Disney version of Tigger). Winchell was a true renaissance man. He was a hypnotist and acupuncturist. He wrote on theology. He received 30 patents. One was for the artificial heart which he invented in 1963. He donated it to the University of Utah. One of the doctors who researched it was Dr. Jarvik who implanted a version of into a patient 20 years later.
Figures don't lie, but liars do figures. And advertisers are some of the biggest liars around.
There was a full-page ad on page 5A. The very large headline read, "Lipitor reduces risk of heart attach by 36%*"
Now, as I previously was a graphic designer, I'm not going to go into the absolutely horrible design of the headline that featured three fonts, different kerning and tracking on each line (and within each line). I was just interested in the asterisk.
When you go to the small print to explain the asterisk it says, "That means in a large clinical study, 3% of patients taking a sugar pill or placebo had a heart attack compared to 2% of patients taking Lipitor."
Oi vey! Where to begin on this ad?
First, the claim of 36% cherry-picks the data. If you look at the entire number of subjects, the difference is just 1%. What the advertisers illegitimately did what is pull out only the number of people who had heart attacks and ignored all of the other people in the test. That's simply unethical.
Further, what is meant by a "large clinical study?" Are we talking 10,000 subjects or 100? If it's only a few hundred subjects (and no information is given about the risk factors for heart attack that the subjects had),the actual difference of 1% is not scientifically significant.
This ad is outright deceptive.
By that's not all. Just because out of 100 people, one less person who takes Lipitor gets a heart attack than those who take placebos does not mean that Lipitor was responsible for that 1% (not 36%) reduction. To factually make that claim you would have to show the science that shows how Lipitor specifically and directly prevented the heart attack. No such proof is offered. In fact, many scientists say that there is no evidence to show a direct relationship between high cholesterol (which is treated by Lipitor) and heart attack. Rather, they say that the cause is inflamation of the arteries.
The original tests that showed drugs such as Lipitor reduce cholesterol featured a combination of the drug with Coenzyme Q10. Lipitor does not include CoQ10. That's like testing one set of drugs to see how it works and then selling a different formulation.
Finally, it has a recommendation by Dr Robert Jarvik, "Inventor of the Jarvik Artificial Heart." This is false information. Dr. Jarvik did not invent the artificial heart. It was actually invented by Paul Winchell (the ventriloquist who worked with figures Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff and was later the voice for the Disney version of Tigger). Winchell was a true renaissance man. He was a hypnotist and acupuncturist. He wrote on theology. He received 30 patents. One was for the artificial heart which he invented in 1963. He donated it to the University of Utah. One of the doctors who researched it was Dr. Jarvik who implanted a version of into a patient 20 years later.
Figures don't lie, but liars do figures. And advertisers are some of the biggest liars around.