[Random-bits] Gilead Sciences and Tech Central Station, checkbook journalism

[James Love]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/gilead-sciences-and-tech-
_b_19059.html

Gilead Sciences and Tech Central Station, checkbook journalism
James Love, Huffington Post
April 13, 2006

Tech Central Station Daily (TSCDaily.com) is a polished online news
and opinion magazine, that is "hosted" by James Glassman, and
published by of the DCI Group, L.L.C.

The DCI Group describes itself as "a full-service public and
government affairs firm," that "possesses extensive grassroots and
government affairs experience," that "helps shape public opinion and
outcomes 'outside the Beltway.'" The DCI Group sells Internet
Strategies that allows a client "to take an issue and communicate it
on your terms to the world - no media filter, no hostile
interpretations by opponents." (For more on DCI group, see the entry
in SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DCI_Group.)

With patents on Tamiflu, and drugs such tenofovir (for HIV), adefovir
dipivoxil (hepatitis B) and others, Gilead Sciences is among eight
"sponsors" of Tech Central Station. Tech Central State has published
apparently 20 stories mentioning Tamiflu, including for example, this
one:

Incentives and Deadly Disease, Pavel Kohout, 23 Nov 2005 ". . .
Currently there are political attempts to expropriate Tamiflu patent
rights. As attractive as it may sound to some defenders of the poor,
this is the wrong way to go. If Tamiflu rights were confiscated now,
it may happen that in case of another epidemic there would be no drug
available at all. Even more chillingly, patent rights violations
would impede development of drugs for cancer, cardiovascular diseases
and other deadly diseases that are far more serious than any epidemic."

Or this one:

Future Flu Fight, Anders Sandberg, 16 Dec 2005
"As the Tamiflu affair shows, it might even be bad for business to
have a successful treatment. There is a general perception that it is
immoral to profit from a necessary treatment and this has paved the
way to destructive precedents of forced licensing. It makes
manufacturing drugs against emerging diseases even more commercially
risky: if they are unsuccessful you lose money; if they are
successful you make less money since governments declare you must
license them to competitors or sell them at a certain price. It makes
companies concentrate on illnesses that are less likely to be a
subject of a political panic and less useful in third world countries."

Or this one:

Figuring Out the Flu, By Dr. Henry I. Miller, 20 Jan 2006
"Historically, flu pandemics have come in two or three waves, lasting
a total of 13-23 months. In other words, the need to take Tamiflu --
by first responders, health care workers and ordinary citizens --
could go on for months and months, or even years. U.S. public health
officials have said they plan to buy 20 million doses of Tamiflu, but
that would be enough to treat only 200,000 people for 100 days at the
dosage approved by FDA for prophylaxis. And the retail price per pill
is around $8, so the expense to treat that small number of people for
that amount of time would be $160 million. According to various
models, in the absence of sufficient amounts of an effective vaccine
-- which is not yet within reach -- to blunt the first wave of the
pandemic, we would need to treat perhaps half of the population with
Tamiflu. Do the math: 150 million people for 100 days equals 15
billion doses, at a retail cost of $120 billion."

Tech Central Station even offers a special web page on Bird Flu:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/sections/birdflu/resources.aspx

There is nothing wrong any of these views entering the debate over
how to respond to Bird Flu or the patents on Tamiflu. But the fact
that they are published on something that looks like a news magazine,
but which is in fact run by a public relations company, makes the
Page 6 payolla scandal at the Post seem less shocking.

In addition to Gilead Sciences, the other sponsors of Tech Central
Station include the American Beverage Association, ExxonMobil,
Freddie Mac, General Motors Corporation, McDonalds, Merck and PhRMA.
They all get plenty of spin for their money. Merck, for example, has
benefited from many stories stridently attacking Brazil's efforts to
obtain lower prices for the AIDS drug evavirenz. McDonalds benefits
from TCS stories like <"Kids, Fries and Cancer: Is There a Connection?".

I have frequently been on the receiving end of critical Tech Central
Stories, as well as articles elsewhere written by James Glassman and
other Tech Central contributors. Because my own views concerning
patents on medicines are often presented in a misleading or
inaccurate way, I invited James Glassman for lunch, to discuss
things. So far, he has not had the time for a face to face chat.


---------------------------------
James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks."  Bill Walton