http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?section=Celebrity&oid=65650

Sunday, December 26, 2004

New Moore project gives drug companies a sick feeling

By Elaine Dutka
Los Angeles Times


America's pharmaceutical industry is putting out an advisory about the
latest potential threat to its health: Michael Moore.

Moore, the filmmaker whose targets have included General Motors (Roger
& Me), the gun lobby (the Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine) and
President Bush (Fahrenheit 9/11), has now set his sights on the
health-care industry, including insurance companies, HMOs, the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA)--and drug companies.

At least six of the nation's largest companies already have issued
internal notices to their workforces, preparing them for potential
ambushes.

"We ran a story in our online newspaper saying Moore is embarking on a
documentary--and if you see a scruffy guy in a baseball cap, you'll
know who it is," said Stephen Lederer, a spokesman for Pfizer Global
Research and Development.

In September and October, GlaxoSmithKline, the second-largest in
retail sales, as well as AstraZeneca and Wyeth, sent out Moore alerts,
instructing employees that questions posed by the media or filmmakers
should be handled by corporate communications.

Heavyweights Sanofi-Synthelabo and Aventis Pharmaceuticals each sent
similar memos before their recent merger.

Merck & Co., Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly & Co., Bristol-Myers
Squibb, Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries
send periodic messages about dealing with the media but haven't
singled out Moore by name.

Johnson & Johnson declined to comment.

Moore's project is only the latest bit of bad news for the beleaguered
industry.

Popular--and lucrative--drugs such as Vioxx, Celebrex and Aleve have
been linked to cardiovascular problems, and the possibility of
lawsuits is looming.

Canada is undercutting US drug prices, and health budgets are being
slashed.

And then there's increased scrutiny by the FDA, whose oversight of the
drug industry and its relationship to it is raising many questions.

"We have an image problem--not only with Michael Moore, but with the
general public," said M.J. Fingland, senior director of communications
for the Washington, D.C.-based Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America.

"We're criticized on the Hill and in the press--put in the category of
the tobacco industry, even though we save lives."

The industry, Fingland said, has made great strides in the last three
years--since a new ethics policy was implemented in 2001.

Drawn up with the help of the American Medical Association and other
medical specialty groups, it restricted the types of gifts given to
doctors, for example, setting a $100 ceiling on each.

Although pharmaceutical companies can still sponsor meetings, they no
longer have free rein to treat doctors to five-star dinners or pick up
their hotel tabs.

"Giveaways, lavish trips are a thing of the past," Fingland said.

"We've cleaned up the business considerably."

Despite the improvement, pharmaceutical executives are bracing for the
worst.

"Moore's past work has been marked by negativity, so we can only
assume it won't be a fair and balanced portrayal," said Rachel Bloom,
executive director of corporate communications for the Wilmington,
Delaware-based AstraZeneca.

"His movies resemble docudramas more than documentaries."

Rumors already are flying within the industry about Moore's
moviemaking tactics.

Moore, it is said, has hired actors to portray pharmaceutical salesmen
who offer gifts to doctors who promote their products.

There's also word that he's offered physicians $50,000 apiece to
install secret cameras in their offices in an effort to document
alleged corruption.

In September employees said that Moore was shoving a microphone at
people at GlaxoSmithKline, Bloom notes, even though he was in town
only for a radio appearance.

"We have six business centers nationwide, all of which report
'sightings,'" Bloom said.

"Michael Moore is becoming an urban legend."

Tentatively titled Sicko, Moore's film will probably be released in
the first half of 2006, sometime between the Sundance and Cannes film
festivals.

No deal has yet been reached, but an announcement is expected after
the new year.

There's interest in the industry, he says, on the part of some of the
major studios and not just their specialty divisions.

Reached at his home in Michigan, the director declined to say whether
he's hired actors to portray pharmaceutical salesmen and denied paying
doctors to help him install secret cameras.

("I didn't need to. So many doctors have offered to help, for free, in
an effort to expose the system.")

He does admit to hanging around hospitals, insurance companies and
pharmaceutical companies, including two that have not issued internal
alerts.

It's getting harder to find corporate executives, however, who are
willing to sit down for interviews, Moore said.

Moore decided to make a film about health care because it's "a
hot-button issue with the average American--the domestic issue of the
day," he said.

"Being screwed by your HMO and ill-served by pharmaceutical companies
is the shared American experience. The system, inferior to that of
much poorer nations, benefits the few at the expense of the many."

Tackling the health industry first occurred to the documentarian after
he shot a segment for his now-defunct TV show The Awful Truth, about a
man fighting his insurance company to pay for a kidney and pancreas
transplant.

He said the viewer response was enormous--as was audience reaction to
a derogatory line about HMOs in the Jack Nicholson-Helen Hunt movie As
Good As It Gets.

There was a raw nerve, he ultimately decided, that wasn't being
addressed.

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Harry