MySpace Addiction411
The marketing branch at drug maker Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals Inc., must have been slapping themselves on the back when this pharmaceutical company, which makes Suboxone / Bupernorphine, launched their Addiction411 MySpace page. Why the joy? According to a story in Reuters a recent study found that over the past ten years the amount spent by pharmaceutical companies has increased by 330 percent. That makes a free page on MySpace, which has 15 million unique logins each day, a real marketing coup.Now you might think that a page targeted at preventing individuals from going down a path that would lead to the eventual use of the company’s products would be counter productive, but here’s what Shaun Thaxter , company president actually had to say, “Our hope is that providing the MySpace generation information on opioid dependence will help prevent them from becoming dependent, or will allow them to find appropriate medical help for themselves, their friends, or their families.” Based on their page, the focus is much more on the latter than the former.
The first thing you come to after the header graphic is a doctor locater so that you can find treatment if you’re having a problem. Fill in the zip code and a radius you want to search and you are taken to a Google mashup like this one on their TurntoHelp site. What isn’t at all apparent, if you have just arrived here from their MySpace page, is that the list of doctors you are bing shown are only those doctors who have agreed to and are trained to prescribe bupernorphine.
You then come to their supposed “prevention” effort which is weak at best and harmful at worst. Telling teens that there has been a 343% increase in the use of painkillers is not prevention. In fact, from a social norming perspective it could easily be seen as an effort to normalize the abuse of pain prescription meds.
Click on the Help page and you learn that “The good news is that people can be treated for addiction to prescription pain killers or heroin in the privacy of a physician’s office.” While perhaps technically true it is generally false that addiction treatment is going to occur in this manner. True a physician can prescribe medications like Suboxone but that is not treatment. Physicians are not trained and do not have the time required to help the addicts re-pattern their thinking, or change their behavior. These are the things (sometimes along with medication) that make addiction treatment work. The fact that Reckitt Benckiser leaves this information out just makes their true aim all the more transparent.
What else is on their MySpace Page? Well, you can join a “support program.” This program consists of emails which are, again, little more than another effort to market their product. Their example email reads
Dear ((Name)),
You’ve taken an important first step in choosing treatment that includes SUBOXONE®. Over the next few months, we will continue to send you e-mails that explain what you can expect as your treatment progresses.
Interestingly enough, not once on the MySpace Addiction411 page is there a disclaimer that the page is by a pharmaceutical company with a vested interest in promoting their own product, or a certain method of treatment.
It is unfortunate that Reckitt Benkiser did not more closely examine their own motives and how those could best be served before they embarked on this effort. The truth is, the medication they have have to offer can be helpful to those with an opiate/opioid dependency issue, however, their MySpace tactic should be seen not as prevention, but rather a push for Suboxone.
If you’re concerned by Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals Inc., MySpace page contact MySpace to register your complaint. You can also write the FDA which is supposed to oversee drug company advertising.
