Congress has been asking some tough questions while wearing their serious faces about why Dr. Robert Jarvik (inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart) is shilling Lipitor when he’s not actually licensed to practice medicine.
ABC News says that Dr. Jarvik has been paid a guaranteed $1.35 million for the ads, which feature him espousing the virtues of Lipitor in a doctoriffic-looking lab coat and rowing around a lake talking about “when diet and exercise aren’t enough.”
Here’s our favorite part of the story—the New York Times says that Dr. Jarvik uses a stunt double when he’s shown rowing in the commercials.
As it turns out, Dr. Jarvik, 61, does not actually practice the sport. The ad agency hired a stunt double for the sculling scenes.
“He’s about as much an outdoorsman as Woody Allen,” said a longtime collaborator, Dr. O. H. Frazier of the Texas Heart Institute. “He can’t row.”
The NYT even posted a PDF of a rowing club newsletter with an article written by the dude they hired to row around pretending to be Jarvik.
Jodi, the Seattle-based casting agent, told me that I was everyone’s first choice so far, but it was up to the client. And no, it wasn’t my sterling (or tarnished) sculling technique that impressed them; by genetic luck of the draw and male-pattern baldness I was the best body double available for Dr. Jarvik, who it turns out is my age, an inch taller and five pounds heavier than I.
For some reason we think this is hilarious.
Naturally, Congress is very concerned about fake rowing—they’re sending out letters to Pfizer’s ad agencies to inquire about it, as part of their overall investigation into the Lipitor commercials. We guess they’re worried because fake rowing would play into an overall picture of deceptive advertising.
In response to all the Congressional attention, Dr. Jarvik has been popping up on the morning chat shows and has even released a statement on his website defending his choice to shill Lipitor:
I do not practice clinical medicine and hence do not treat individual patients. My career is in medical science. I have earned Bachelors, Masters, and MD degrees, and I have received honorary Doctor of Science, Doctor of Engineering, and Doctor of Medicine degrees. I am presently President and CEO of the company that manufactures the Jarvik 2000 heart. I have collaborated closely with many top surgeons and cardiologists from dozens of leading medical centers in the United States, Europe, and Asia. I have been named Inventor of the Year and have received a Lifetime Research Achievement Award among other honors. The Jarvik 7 and Jarvik 2000 hearts have been displayed at the Smithsonian Institution as part of their exhibit called “Treasures of American History.”
Fake hearts, fake rowing. Where will it end, America?
Statement by Dr. Jarvik Regarding his Role as Lipitor Spokesman [Jarvik Heart]
Dr. Robert Jarvik Lipitor Ad [NYT]
Drug Ads Raise Questions for Heart Pioneer [NYT via WSJ Health Blog]
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Good to know that congress is taking time out of it’s busy investigations of Major League Baseball to put some time and effort into something that really matters.
@Canerican: That is a hot tip. Do you have any pictoral or video evidence so I may investigate further?
If Congress is investigating Pfizer’s ad agency and their spokespeople, I just hope that it isn’t retroactive – because no one wants to know if Bob Dole was qualified to shill for Viagra.
I’m of a mind that everyone in ANY TV COMMERCIAL should be what they say they are. Anyone who hawks a medicine should actually be on that medicine. Anyone who’s shown eating a bowl of Total had BETTER eat Total regularly. If you’re gasping from the floor and reaching for your Life-Alert, you’d best have a real broken hip.
And Aunt Betty and Uncle Jim dressed up like food in the Vytorin ads needn’t be there at all. NO MORE ACTORS IN COMMERCIALS, it’s one of the many hideous slopes we’re rolling down. And while I’m at it, NO MORE KIDS selling us stuff either. They shouldn’t be allowed to be spokespersons for corporations, they’re just kids reading copy, jerking our emotional chains pointlessly.
And for Gods’ sake. Those smarmy chefs who are selling the Healthy Choice meals – it says “dramatization” at the bottom! No chef prepared or had any say in the creation of these little sodium bombs, no chef would serve such abhorrent fare anywhere… why do people dressed as chefs get to make it seem like chefs were involved? I’d like them to just stop lying to us, both outright and with little “dramatizations”. Why is that so impossible?
Oh yeah: because we told corporations they could do anything they wanted to.
Carry on.
@nequam: I agree. Id by some of that pill if it showed this old guy jumping from a plan on a crash course with a mountain, the snowboarding to cover in a hail of gun fire. Not some sissy taking a slow row down a stream or going for a jog.
@Canerican: You think that’s news to Congress?
@alexanderpink:
Yeah, I’m a med student too, so you can spare me the dime store antihyperlipidemics lecture. I got enough of that in pharm. I’m not saying that statins are controversial, and that’s not the point. He could be shilling aspirin for all I care. The guy is NOT a physician, MD or no MD. It’s all about the license to practice. Pfizer is banking on people recognizing his name and thinking “the guy invented an artificial heart, he must know what he’s talking about.” Like most advertisements, it’s both disingenuous and deceptive.
Does this really matter that much? The guy is famous for doing something heart-related, so he must know something about hearts. If he knew nothing about it, then maybe they’d have some argument, but it’s not like Ron Jeremy is on there talking about how great it is, it’s this dude who invented a fake heart.
Also, how many commercials have I seen in the last week where an actor is playing a doctor giving some sort of advice? Like a million! There’s that one where there’s an entire school of med students talking about how great ____ drug is.
Did Pfizer ever say “This guy is a physician”? I don’t recall that. They say “this is Dr Jarvis, inventor of the Jarvis artificial heart”. Yeah, the reason he’s on there is because he knows something about hearts. None of the actors, including those that are meant to portray actual physicians/pharm/whatever, that talk about any of the other drugs know much about anything.
Oh for a second there I thought Frazier was a Frazier I knew who’s a bigwig around these parts. Different dude, though.
@B-REAL The statin comment wasn’t directed toward you, it was directed to someone before you who claim they were controversial. And Dr. Jarvik is a physician, he has an M.D. What other criteria do you propose as a standard of someone being a physician or not? I don’t see someone being currently licensed to practice medicine as the defining characteristic of physician. By definition he is a medical doctor, which is synonymous with physician. Regardless of a semantical debate, this commercial is neither “disingenuous” or “deceptive”. Who would be a better expert on a statin that a medical doctor who has actively researched the drug as well as takes it himself? Not only are you wrong in asserting this commercial is deceptive (was a false claim implied?) or disingenuous (was a dishonest claim made?), but he is fully qualified to speak on behalf of he drug. In addition, it is irrelevant that he he be qualified in such a manner because 1)actors pimp drugs all the time and 2) the commercial has no bearing on whether the person ends up taking lipitor or not. Look, your patient comes to you and says “I have high cholesterol, is Lipitor right for me?” You say, well take this cheaper generic statin instead. Either the patient takes that generic or he insists on Lipitor, in which case he can have it if it is equally efficacious and everyone is satisfied. The only negative outcome would be a clearly unlikely scenario of Lipitor being a worse choice of medicine, AND the patient insisting on it AND the doctor prescribing it. Then the onus is still on the doctor. What have we learned? That direct to consumer drug marketing does not harm the consumer. If anything, the case would be made it harms the doctor b/c 1)you have to deal with know it all patients or 2)you have to stay on top of popular medications.
they needed something to distract the sheep from Iraq / Afganistan I guess they finally found something
“Doctor” is a degree, not a license.
One can be a doctor in English Lit. A doctor is NOT necessarily a physician. You will see in many ads, people stating they are doctors. In the small print you will see what type of degree. There are others who give themselves doctorates in unacknowledged fields.
Anyway, WHO CARES! It’s a commercial. Who really cares if Jarvis was rowing?? I would rather see him, than a fake doctor. Are we running out to purchase the medication because of this? Our personal physician still has to decide, if it is a proper drug for us.
Do we care that an actor does not do his own stunts? Why are our representatives wasting OUR money on this investigation? They must have nothing else to do…”distracting the sheep.” Have we all gone stupid?
Billions of dollars are being scammed out of consumers, with all types of fraudulent products, preying on an individual’s problems. They are advertised on TV and through other ad media–with fake claims, bogus “clinical” trials, and invented degrees and status of their “inventor/ spokes person.” These are the ads make me sick. THIS IS SOMETHING TO CARE ABOUT! A lot of this “snake oil” makes it hard for consumers to find or get products that really work. These good, legitimate products are not always from the big companies, like Pfizer. There are little guys out there who do research and create many needed consumer products. They are not backed by big money and get lost in the ocean of fakes–that should be investigated.
Well, I’m sure that Jarvik does shill the Jarvik 2000 artificial heart, doesn’t he? Not that being paid one-point-three million to do the ads makes him biased in any way. Hell, for $1.3M I’m sure Jarvik would shill the “Garvik Happy 2001″ artificial heart knock-off made in China, too.
alexanderpink, as a fellow med student I agree with almost all of your points but you do have to include the fact that if drugs were not marketed, then their costs would be lower. Also, there is a difference between consumer marketing and physician marketing. I disagree with one point…Dr. Jarvik is not a physician, since a physician by definition practices medicine, while Dr. Jarvik does not AFAIK.
Consumer marketing is fine. Physician marketing I disagree with, although I do miss free pens and food and get irratated by the hoight-toity “I am so great because I am pharm free and you are a shill because you took a pen and taco” people.