The Ethical Nag

Vancouver's Cypress Mountain this week

Don’t you love a good David-and-Goliath story?  Here’s one about a little bitty iPhone app that has forced mega-ski resorts to alter their public updates on snow conditions. For the sake of clarity, I’ll call this: ‘Telling The Truth For A Change”.  But first, let’s look at a very recent example of this issue at work. There’s a secret that the organizers of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver do not want you to know: it rains a lot here on the balmy West Coast of Canada all winter.  

In fact, World Cup ski events are no longer held here because of the frequency of warm weather cancellations.

And recent winter rains have forced Cypress Mountain to close this week.  Cypress is home to Olympic aerial and mogul skiing and to snowboarding, snow-cross and ski-cross events. 

While the people who actually live here have far more important things to worry about next month (like 2,000 elective surgeries being cancelled in Vancouver because of the Games, or the homeless being tidily swept off the streets so the world’s media will not notice them, or 800 of our province’s teachers losing their jobs because, although there is plenty of government money for the Games, there’s not enough for education), Vancouver’s Olympic organizers may also be a wee bit worried about their snow venues just weeks before the games start.  It’s really a dreadful problem compared to cancelled surgeries or the homeless issue or fired teachers.

But these organizers now insist they’ve got enough snow stockpiled to run Olympic events at Cypress when the Olympic games happen from February 12-28, 2010. Tim Gayda, the 2010 games’ vice-president of sport, explained:

“When we saw this warming trend, we worked with the mountain to look at all the places where there was natural snow and we started to stockpile it. When you push it into these big piles, it insulates it a lot better. There’s thousands of cubic metres of snow in each pile.”

So “Don’t worry, be happy” is once again the reassuring update from the slopes.  It turns out, however, that reassurances of excellent ski conditions are actually a common marketing practice in the ski industry – whether they are true or not. Good conditions lure skiers to the hill.  Poor conditions scare them off.  Ski resorts have for years pulled a subtle snow job on the recreational skier/snowboarder, routinely inflating reports of how much new snow has fallen in order to lure the lucrative weekend crowd, according to a new study called Wintertime for Deceptive Advertising reported by national correspondent David Ebner in The Globe and Mail last week.   Read more…

You know that photogenic and charming medical “expert” who is trotted out during your breakfast hour newscasts to explain the latest health buzz?  The medical miracle breakthrough that gets a full page spread in the Sunday paper? The CBS television show 60 Minutes gushing over the Kanzius cancer cure machine?  How can you tell if these news stories are on the level?

The simple answer: you can’t. ”Everytime you think you’ve seen the worst use of media coverage of health topics, something lower pops up”, claims the savvy medical journalism watchdogs over at Health News Review. 

For example, here’s how HNR evaluated a “news” story on ABC’s Good Morning America about an off-label unapproved use of laser treatment for toenail fungus. ”The advantages were unsubstantiated, the harms unstated, and the effectiveness exaggerated. Promotion of an unapproved off-label use of laser treatment that has no published study results available.  Disease mongering at its worst. Millions of us ’suffering in silence’ with toenail fungus? Gag me.”

HNR makes the following assessment of the laser treatment news story:   Read more…

Bayer’s recent ad claims have become a real headache for the German drug company. The Center for Science in the Public Interest filed a lawsuit on September 30 against Bayer over ad claims for its One A Day Men’s Health Formula multi-vitamin. Bayer says that because its product contains selenium, it may reduce the risk of prostate cancer, which CSPI said has been proven false.

The nonprofit health advocacy group said it reached out to Bayer in June 2009, asking it to alter its marketing materials following the results of an eight-month clinical trial that showed that selenium does not prevent prostate cancer. It also showed selenium may actually have harmful affects such as an increased risk of diabetes. CSPI reported that Bayer threatened to sue for libel after the group spotlighted the alleged flaws in Bayer’s claims.  And no wonder – Bayer pocketed almost $24 million in sales on this product during the past year.

Bayer might want to visit the Mayo Clinic website before it launches that libel suit.  Mayo Clinic doctors apparently agree with CSPI:

Some companies have suggested that daily doses of the mineral selenium, vitamin E or both may have helped to prevent prostate cancer. But further study has shown these supplements have no effect on prostate cancer. In some cases, these supplements may cause side effects or lead to other health conditions.

Learn more about the Bayer lawsuit. 

This Stayfree magazine spoof of a fictitious drug called PANEXA would be hilarious if it weren’t so eerily close to how Big Pharma is actually marketing prescription drugs.  This “Ask Your Doctor” type of ad  is what Big Pharma calls Direct To Consumer advertising – and it really works.  

PLEASE READ THIS SUMMARY CAREFULLY, THEN ASK YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT PANEXA AND HOW TO PROVIDE YOU WITH LARGE QUANTITIES. THIS ADVERTISEMENT DOES NOT TAKE THE PLACE OF ADVICE FROM YOUR DOCTOR; RATHER, IT PROVIDES YOU WITH NEW INFORMATION ABOUT NEW DRUGS YOU COULD BE USING.

PANEXA is a prescription drug that should only be taken by patients experiencing one of the following disorders:

Read more…