Communication Agents Help Turn The Tables On Big Pharma

[Guest guest]

September 28, 2004

 

Communication Agents Help Turn The Tables On Big Pharma

 

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2004/09/28/communication_agents_help_turn_the\

..htm

 

.... " But it was really the internet that allowed public health activists to

do an end run around GSK's and the medical authorities' denials of the

drug's risks. An explosion of websites dedicated to vivid accounts of

antidepressant reactions told these campaigners about hundreds of

thousands affected by a problem that officially did not exist.

 

The internet was 'groaning with evidence'; over time, the 'cover-up became

more obvious as the weight of scientific evidence got stronger and public

protest grew'. Those are quotations from a magisterial history and

analysis of the antidepressant crisis by two leading campaigners, Charles

Medawar and Anita Hardon, in Medicines Out of Control?, a new book recommended

by The Lancet as essential reading for members of the parliamentary committee

examining pharma influence on health policy, whose hearings began last

week.

 

As critical to the pharmas' outing as the raw data on the internet was

this medium's capacity for handling complexity - at the speed of firing

neurons. " ...

 

Like the printed press, and now the net which the vested interests

inadvertently let slip, has now become the primary chink in their armour.

 

This is are our Ace.

 

We need to exploit it exponentially and move the yard sticks forward.

 

Robin Good' internet Communication Agents Initiative, of which I am a

proud member, is exactly the type of Internet tool that is designed to turn the

tables on the vested interests - it is gratifying to see validation on

this effort - thus making this whole endeavor worthwhile.