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Author Topic: New EpiPen TV ad . . .  (Read 41952 times)

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Offline maeve

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #30 on: April 18, 2012, 02:41:08 PM »
Remember, Maria Acebal is a former Dey exec.  I'm not terribly surprised if there is a partnership between FAAN and Dey/Mylan such that the PR is a well-oiled machine and FAAN is controlling their message on the subject for the sake of that partnership. 

Not only is she a former Dey exec but Dey is a major source of funding for FAAN.  Can you spell conflict of interest?
"Oh, I'm such an unholy mess of a girl."

USA-Virginia
DD allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, and egg; OAS to cantaloupe and cucumber

Offline Mfamom

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #31 on: April 18, 2012, 02:42:28 PM »
kind of like wearing a seat belt.  Just because you wear your seat belt are you guaranteed safety during an accident?? Just because you're wearing it, does it mean you should drive carelessly? 

When People Show You Who They Are, Believe Them.  The First Time.


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Offline maeve

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #32 on: April 18, 2012, 02:52:54 PM »
According to FAAN's 2010 annual report (the latest available on their web site), they receive more than $100K annually from Dey.  They receive nearly $3.6 million in contributions and grants and about $600K from membership dues. 
 
http://www.foodallergy.org/files/2010FAAN_AnRep_FinalWeb.pdf
« Last Edit: April 18, 2012, 03:06:43 PM by maeve »
"Oh, I'm such an unholy mess of a girl."

USA-Virginia
DD allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, and egg; OAS to cantaloupe and cucumber

Offline ajasfolks2

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #33 on: April 18, 2012, 04:01:36 PM »
It's much cooler here tonight with weather change.  I really don't want to run the furnace.

Perhaps we'll haul in the chiminea and use it in the living room tonight.

Why not?  We've got *2* fire extinguishers in the house!!

Chiminea's are so much fun.  My kids will be so excited!!!


 :bonking:

Is this where I blame iPhone and cuss like an old fighter pilot's wife?

**(&%@@&%$^%$#^%$#$*&      LOL!!   

Offline GoingNuts

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #34 on: April 18, 2012, 04:08:52 PM »
I've written my letters, and lodged a phone complaint with Dey as well.  And I've alerted my local support group.  One of their members is very active with FAI; I'm sure she'll have some interesting input.

Must start dinner, then I'm writing to FAAN as well.  I am soooo steamed about this. 
"Speak out against the madness" - David Crosby
N.E. US

Offline CMdeux

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #35 on: April 18, 2012, 04:21:10 PM »
Thanks, everyone, for thinking about this and expressing your thoughts to Dey, to the FDA, and/or to others.

One thing that DD pointed out was (and this was ENTIRELY uncoached, I just showed her the ad-- no titling, no preface, no nothing);  "Wow.  Way to make it seem as though this doesn't interfere with ANYTHING in a person's life.  It makes us look like total WHINERS if we don't live like <hand gestures> THAT."


She also had some choice things to say about the obvious extensions to gun safety... auto insurance, health insurance, etc.  Yes, she went on for quite some time, once she stopped that initial speechless spluttering in inchoate fury.

This pathologically cheery "this is NO! BIG! DEAL!" attitude is fairly classic in the context of FAAN rhetoric, too, though, and it's a prime reason why we dropped our membership when DD was but a tiny tot.

They clearly weren't interested in OUR experiences with food allergies.  Our experiences were so profoundly COUNTER to that cheery, Stepford-esque worldview of how to manage allergies that we were distinctly persona non grata.

SO what if they alienate kids who can't GO to the party with a cake made from "who knows what"?  It's not like anyone with a reaction history like THAT is ever going to stop carrying epinephrine anyway.  Why try harder, YK?

Which on the one hand, I understand as an outreach thing.  I get that they want to reach the people (as becca pointed out) who don't think that they NEED to be carrying epi because they are determined to "live their lives" in spite of FA. 

I just don't think it is necessary to take a giant crap on those of us who don't ever have that luxury by virtue of our (or our child's) unfortunate circumstances (being much more sensitive than average, being inconveniently allergic to a non-top-8 allergen, and/or not "outgrowing" those pesky ubiquitous allergens like wheat, soy, or milk).  Way to make life even harder for the subset of people whose lives are ALREADY HARDER THAN MOST people with the condition.  Way to make them have to work that much harder to gain the cooperation of those around them.   

Yeah.  Too bad we choose to be such a bunch of PITA's.  We should just... lighten up and carry MORE epinephrine. Idiocy:rant:  <fuming>
Resistance isn't futile.  It's voltage divided by current. 

Western U.S.

Offline Ciel

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #36 on: April 18, 2012, 04:51:04 PM »
I'm just speechless. Unbelievable

Offline LinksEtc

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #37 on: April 18, 2012, 04:51:46 PM »
we were distinctly persona non grata.

I am familiar with this status  :)

Wrote my letter.  Done.


Offline maeve

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #38 on: April 18, 2012, 05:47:25 PM »
Thanks, everyone, for thinking about this and expressing your thoughts to Dey, to the FDA, and/or to others.

One thing that DD pointed out was (and this was ENTIRELY uncoached, I just showed her the ad-- no titling, no preface, no nothing);  "Wow.  Way to make it seem as though this doesn't interfere with ANYTHING in a person's life.  It makes us look like total WHINERS if we don't live like <hand gestures> THAT."


She also had some choice things to say about the obvious extensions to gun safety... auto insurance, health insurance, etc.  Yes, she went on for quite some time, once she stopped that initial speechless spluttering in inchoate fury.

This pathologically cheery "this is NO! BIG! DEAL!" attitude is fairly classic in the context of FAAN rhetoric, too, though, and it's a prime reason why we dropped our membership when DD was but a tiny tot.

They clearly weren't interested in OUR experiences with food allergies.  Our experiences were so profoundly COUNTER to that cheery, Stepford-esque worldview of how to manage allergies that we were distinctly persona non grata.

SO what if they alienate kids who can't GO to the party with a cake made from "who knows what"?  It's not like anyone with a reaction history like THAT is ever going to stop carrying epinephrine anyway.  Why try harder, YK?

Which on the one hand, I understand as an outreach thing.  I get that they want to reach the people (as becca pointed out) who don't think that they NEED to be carrying epi because they are determined to "live their lives" in spite of FA. 

I just don't think it is necessary to take a giant crap on those of us who don't ever have that luxury by virtue of our (or our child's) unfortunate circumstances (being much more sensitive than average, being inconveniently allergic to a non-top-8 allergen, and/or not "outgrowing" those pesky ubiquitous allergens like wheat, soy, or milk).  Way to make life even harder for the subset of people whose lives are ALREADY HARDER THAN MOST people with the condition.  Way to make them have to work that much harder to gain the cooperation of those around them.   

Yeah.  Too bad we choose to be such a bunch of PITA's.  We should just... lighten up and carry MORE epinephrine. Idiocy:rant:  <fuming>
These are very good points.  The commercial like so much marketing/outreach about food allergies only focuses on peanut allergy.  It's as if that were the only allergy that existed.
"Oh, I'm such an unholy mess of a girl."

USA-Virginia
DD allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, and egg; OAS to cantaloupe and cucumber

Offline GoingNuts

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #39 on: April 18, 2012, 05:53:14 PM »
I wish I could read the print on the ad.  I searched for a better quality version, but couldn't find one.  Interesting that it isn't one of the ads on the website.

When I spoke to the customer service rep @ Dey, he sounded quite concerned, perhaps disturbed.  I wasn't sure if it was,"OMG, I didn't realize it came off like that" disturbed, or, "OMG, this is the 100th call I've gotten today about this ad" disturbed.  Interesting.
"Speak out against the madness" - David Crosby
N.E. US

Offline Mezzo

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #40 on: April 18, 2012, 07:12:41 PM »
It was hard for me to catch what they were saying the first few times I watched it, and I couldn't read the text was too blurry to read. Maybe that contributed to my mixed response. She isn't saying he's going to eat it. So it isn't blatant to me. It's not good as something the whole world will see, because they'll take it as a model way to manage a food allergy with a kid, when there are many ways to manage them. It encourages the "it's no big deal " attitude, which happens more than it should. There d be something like "of course I'm not going to eat the cake, but it's safer to have the Epi in case of anything happening."

Offline CMdeux

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #41 on: April 18, 2012, 07:50:16 PM »
I simply don't like the message that some risks are okay to take "if you have an Epipen with you."

 :fishslap:

THAT is just wrong, wrong, wrong in terms of management.  It implies, first and foremost, that epinephrine is a "management" tool, or some kind of mitigating measure that reduces apparent risk.

This is not so.  Any situation which is "too risky" is no less so because of rescue meds.

Secondly, it encourages the very myth that kills:  that carrying  epinephrine is "more important" at some times than at others.  E.g.-- when food will be around or eaten.

This is particularly troubling to me given that numerous research studies demonstrate that the two fallacies that occur with distressing frequency in fatalities in both children and young adults are the following:

a) a belief in flexible risk management for social fit-- some risks which would be unacceptable most of the time can become "acceptible" when the benefit is percieved to be correspondingly large.  Teens in particular are guilty of this one, taking horrible risks because they WANT to manage things the way this ad portrays doing, and secondly;

b) a belief that epinephrine is only for occasions where KNOWN risks will be incurred.  Well, this is the logic that leads children to have epipens in lockers and young adults to have them in dorm rooms and cars.  Because they didn't PLAN to anaphylax.  Of course, naturally, the question is then "Who does??"  This is a kissing cousin to the notion that "I'm careful what I eat, so I don't need epinephrine," and also to "I won't be eating anything."


These two myths KILL people.  They. kill. them.  Over the years that I've been reading fatality stories, those two factors are in play in AT LEAST 90% of those stories.  At least.



Resistance isn't futile.  It's voltage divided by current. 

Western U.S.

Offline Janelle205

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #42 on: April 18, 2012, 08:50:30 PM »
So glad that I don't have to worry about what is in my food anymore, since I always have my epi-pen.


Wonder how this plan to just use epinephrine willy-nilly is going to go over with my family doctor, who treats me for a heart condition.  Guessing she won't like it.



Along with this logic, I guess I can take up smoking then too, right?  I mean, I have an inhaler and about 5 nebulizers.  I should be good.

Offline CMdeux

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #43 on: April 18, 2012, 09:04:07 PM »
You want to know the no-holds-barred cynical take on this from my family?

They've seen the writing on the wall with new component testing and new practice paramters for food allergy.  Their cash cow is about to be slaughtered when 30-60% of this huge wave of "allergy kids" turn out to not have allergies after all, at least not outside of RAST/SPT.

Dey has to make as much money off of those people as possible-- before they figure it out.

 :disappointed:

What better way to get to a mom that has never even FILLED that script?  What better way to get to parents that "don't want to be THOSE people" but want to live normally?  What better way to drive scripts than by promoting epinephrine as a lifestyle drug.  Sure.  For "special occasions" only.  Those times when you KNOW that you'll be taking big risks.  You don't have to MODIFY YOUR LIFE.  Epi fits the way YOU want to live! 



(I seriously just threw up a little in my mouth as I typed those icky, icky words.)

I think this is the promotion of an off-label use of the medication.  Seriously. 
Read both the prescribing info and the patient product insert for it:


http://www.drugs.com/pro/epipen.html
« Last Edit: April 18, 2012, 09:46:08 PM by CMdeux »
Resistance isn't futile.  It's voltage divided by current. 

Western U.S.

Offline Mfamom

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Re: New EpiPen TV ad . . .
« Reply #44 on: April 18, 2012, 10:01:48 PM »
http://www.dey.com/

here's link to two other commercials.  I think they are very weak.  they never show the product, in the first one they say, "she's your little peanut, but now she has a peanut allergy"
they say what the product is for but nothing about always carrying it etc.  very weak imho. 
while searching, i found a post about a different commercial from 2009 for epi pen.  apparently they were on baseball field and the narration is a mom telling about her son's reaction to bee sting and how epi pen helped him.  the narration went on to say how epi pen can help with food reactions as well.  camera pans to the dugout and kid eating peanuts (apparently the bag he was holding was labeled PEANUTS). 
I think their ad campaigns need a bit of help!
« Last Edit: April 18, 2012, 10:08:54 PM by Mfamom »
When People Show You Who They Are, Believe Them.  The First Time.


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