As someone who has had a heart attack, taken Lipitor for years – based solely on the advice of my longtime physician – and seen the TV commercial for the drug featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik, oh, maybe a thousand times, I’ve got to say that this decision by Pfizer, while understandable, smacks of an expedient surrender.
Anyone who has a big problem with this commercial has a big problem with drug advertising, period. Let’s have that debate again, if we must, instead of trying to draw fine lines between what celebrity endorsers can and cannot say on television.
I could live without all of these drug commercials, truth be told, and believe without much of anything to back it up that public health, in general, is ill served by them. But it’s a complex issue – one that really has little to do with that single commercial for Lipitor.
