All the Nags from 2010

JANUARY 2010

• How a menu can get you to order what the restaurant wants you to
• The marketing dead weight called Tiger Woods
• Microwave popcorn: (still) bad for you
• Zetia and Vytorin: how Merck got patients to spend $21 billion on drugs that don’t work
• Busted! Ski resorts lure weekend skiers with false snow reports
• Johnson & Johnson: “Welcome to your nursing home nightmare!”
• Selling superbugs: How disinfectants are making us sick
• The medicalization of everyday life

FEBRUARY 2010

• My drug’s bigger than your drug
• “We never imagined that people would think of osteopenia as a disease”
• How Big Pharma spends $20 billion a year on marketing their drugs
• Why the Olympics are bad business
• Ultimatum to doc: Quit drug company moonlighting jobs, or lose Harvard teaching post
• Top 10 most misleading drug ads
• Commercializing kids: marketing to the tiniest consumers

MARCH 2010

• If only Avandia were more like Toyota
• After the party’s over: five myths about hosting the Olympics
• Why you should not buy Girl Guide cookies this year
• How Procter & Gamble brought the Diaper Revolution to China
• Bioethical journal: “Drug marketing corrupts every part of the scientific and medical network”
• Sock puppetry, astroturfing and the marketing shill game
• Why Oprah is not your doctor
• Generic drugs: are they really exactly the same as brand name drugs?

APRIL 2010

• Drugs are falling off the patent cliff
• Does the medical profession need to wean itself off the ‘pervasive dependence on Big Pharma money?
• How Big Pharma’s ‘Pay for Delay’ tactics keep generic drugs off the market
• Lessons from Toyota for the Pope
• The disturbing story behind Pfizer’s $2.3 billion drug marketing fines
• Why are you still buying bottled water?
• The world’s most expensive drugs

MAY 2010

• Harvard cozies up with Big Pharma
• Why is Big Pharma getting away with paying billions in criminal fines – but not facing criminal charges?
• If we’re beautiful just the way we are, why do those Dove ‘Real Beauty’ ads tell us we need to buy their skin-firming creams?
• 50 surprising products you use every day that are made from petroleum
• 12 shocking Eco-Truths with one small problem – they’re false
• Drug watchdog seeks tattle-tales to bust bad ads
• $15 million in damages awarded for Botox side effects
• Fewer doctors are agreeing to see drug reps

JUNE 2010

• Snake oil in your snacks
• The best and worst of how journalists cover health news
• Why you should take Zoloft – for everything!
• When you use bad science to sell drugs
• Adidas vs Nike: the World Cup battle of the brands
• Did Big Pharma fund the swine flu panic?
• Your health – and the World Cup
• Over 350 pounds? Eat free at the Heart Attack Grill!

JULY 2010

• How to set up your own phony non-profit as a front for Big Business
• Warning: Dora the Explorer might be dangerous to your children’s health
• Why the Vatican’s abuse response is being called “a PR failure, carnage, nightmare, and train wreck”
• What doctors should do – but don’t – about their colleagues who are “impaired or incompetent to practice medicine”
• When medical research is funded to favour the drug, not the facts
• True or false?  Most smokers need help to quit
• Seven subconscious cues marketers use to affect your buying decisions
• The endangered species called Catholic nuns

AUGUST 2010

• How 10-year old children are helping Philip Morris earn billions in cigarette sales each year
• Why industry lobbyists and pseudo-scientists insist that the “meat and butter” diet is good for us
• Too many smokers are quitting on their own – so Pfizer pays doctors to plug Nicorette gum
• Do you know the bitter dark secret behind that sweet taste of chocolate?
• Stealth marketing: how Big Pharma tries to shape medical news
• Why the poor pay virtually no attention to those ‘quit smoking’ campaigns
• News flash: food is better than supplements for staying healthy

SEPTEMBER 2010

• What has happened to you, Dr. Oz?
• Four marketing tricks that Ikea uses to seduce us
• When doctors go retail: is it okay to sell products?
• The haunting of medical journals: how ghostwriting sold hormone replacement therapy
• Provocative TV ad targets McDonald’s high-fat fare
• How deductive reasoning can lead us to stupid conclusions
• Please, no more fridge magnets! Why companies spend all that money on useless corporate swag
• Cardiologists accused of implanting coronary stents that were not needed

OCTOBER 2010

• Seth Godin: “This is broken!”
• Seattle report claims: “Admitting medical errors is not always the best policy”
• Sugar is good for you – and for the people who make sugar!
• Why doctors get sued
• How a New York bakery sold $23.5 million worth of cupcakes last year
• JUST SAY NO to antipsychotic drugs for toddlers
• Big Pharma’s biggest “phlops”
• Is your doctor a “thought leader”?

NOVEMBER 2010

• T-Mobile and the flash mob marketing phenomenon
• Nobel prize winner forced to retract three flawed peer-reviewed journal articles
• ‘Extreme exam anxiety’ – disability or excuse?
• Bad doctors earning good money from Big Pharma
• Whistleblowing is dangerous to your health
• In Thailand, exercise provides relief for all pain
• Novartis stable of big name athletes lures docs to drug dinners

DECEMBER 2010

• Anti-aging question for Suzanne Somers: “Why is pig thyroid good for us, but horse urine bad?
• Lipitor and nine other blockbuster drugs that are “falling off the patent cliff” this year
• Paying illegal kickbacks to doctors: just the cost of doing business for Big Pharma?
• Putting a positive spin on negative medical research results
• The Five A’s of Empty Arguments
• Post hoc ergo properter hoc – Latin for “Don’t drink the water!”
• Mayo Clinic warning: “Beware of alternative health care fraud”
• Why the Pope needs media training
• The Top 10 posts from The Ethical Nag for 2010

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