Drug Maker Paid For 'News' Story on CBS's 60 Minutes, Doctors' Group Alleges (arstechnica.com) 102
A 13-minute segment on a recent episode of CBS's 60 Minutes appeared to be a news story on Novo Nordisk's weight-loss drug Wegovy, but was actually a sponsored promotion violating federal regulations, according to the nonprofit public health advocacy organization Physicians Committee. From a report: The group filed a complaint with the Food and Drug Administration last week, arguing that the segment, which aired on January 1, violates the FDA's "fair balance" requirement. This law requires that drug advertisements give a fair balance to a drug's risks and benefits. The Physicians Committee claims that CBS's 60 Minutes received advertising payments from Novo Nordisk prior to the coverage, and that the aired segment only included experts who had also been paid by Novo Nordisk. The segment lauded the drug with words and phrases such as "highly effective," "safe," "impressive," "fabulous," and "robust," but didn't delve into side effects or alternative treatments and strategies for weight loss.
new zealand and usa only places with drug ads (Score:5, Informative)
new zealand and usa only places with drug ads
And new zealand covers more % then the usa with plans.
Streisand Effect? (Score:3)
I, for one, hadn't watched the segment or heard of the drug before, but am genuinely curious (not going to look into getting the drug, but from a scientific standpoint curious) about it now. I'm sure there are others who will hear about this news and will be interested in the drug as a result. I wonder if The Physicians Committee was banking on the Steisand Effect?
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It's a GLP-1 receptor agonist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It's a GLP-1 receptor agonist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Yet another drug to service addiction rather than investing in programs to help humans eat properly and avoid becoming diabetics.
How very...American.
For the GP, there isn't shit to see here but more of the same.
Re:Streisand Effect? (Score:5, Informative)
Eating properly isn't rocket surgery.
Quite simple actually.
1. Cook you own food....shop around he edges of the grocery store where they have the fresh veggies and fruit, the meat counter and even the dairy counter.
2. Prepare and cook it at home, make enough on the weekends to have leftovers for meals during the week...GREAT for working families.
3. Make fast food a treat...but something you only grab once every 2 months or so?
4. When dining out....make wise choices, you can STILL eat relatively healthy at even a lower middle class sit down restaurant.
5. With all of the above...avoid sugar, avoid highly processed foods (most of that found within the center aisles of the grocery store).
And if you still have problems, give it a try with going ultra low carb....higher fat and protein meals will naturally satiate you and curb your appetite. This way, you do not feel like you're depriving yourself, because you are not hungry.
Again, this isn't difficult nor a mystery.
And for a bonus...throw in some exercise why don't ya?
Re: Streisand Effect? (Score:2)
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It was a treat for me when I was growing up.
99% of our meals were home cooked and we ate together as a family.
Starting when I was in like 5th grade or so, my Mom went back to work, and I came home as a latch key kid.
Often she would leave me instr
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Make fast food a treat...
There's nothing quite like beating an addiction to crap by making a relapse a "treat" for yourself. Better idea: consider fast food for what it is, convenience trash that you shouldn't treat yourself with as much as you should avoid it at all costs and replace with food that is far tastier and more nutritious.
Again, this isn't difficult nor a mystery.
And yet you didn't address a fundamental issue, you never mentioned portion control. The healthiest salad in the world doesn't help you if you hoover the thing down until you're so full you hate yourse
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Look, while I agree that within the spectrum of humanity...pretty much anyone can get "addicted" to anything, be it a physical addiction or mental addiction....I hardly think that the majority of people are at risk for becoming addicted to fast food.
As bad as it is for you...I don't see people in statistically large numbers being hooked to fast food like people are hooked to heroin.
So, yes, for most people
Re: Streisand Effect? (Score:2)
It's not a mystery how to stop doing heroin but that doesn't make it easy. Addiction is real.
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The drug company was certainly banking on the Streisand Effect.
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The drug company was certainly banking on the Streisand Effect.
I've always thought the Streisand Effect was overrated.
For all the things that people try to hush up and inadvertently go viral there's a bunch of other things that people try to hush up... and they succeed.
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...For all the things that people try to hush up and inadvertently go viral there's a bunch of other things that people try to hush up... and they succeed.
"No Shit." - Jeffrey Epstein
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well yeah, it's called the Streisand Effect when it does go viral, it's not a claim that every attempt to hide something will make more visible.
Well the claim here was the company was banking on the Streisand Effect (which doesn't make a ton of sense in this context).
But more commonly, someone tries to suppress something, Streisand Effect kicks in, and lots of folks here start going "Hah! What idiots! They clearly never heard of the Streisand Effect!!"
So yes, there are a lot of people who seem to think that attempting to hide something inevitably makes it more visible.
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The drug company was certainly banking on the Streisand Effect.
If buying a 15-minute segment on 60 Minutes in order to attract attention is now considered part of the "Streisand Effect", I'd love to know how much Google is paying her for royalties.
Good old fashioned Marketing still has the same purpose today as it did 1,000 years ago, so let's not try and give Barbara more credit than she has inadvertently earned.
Weight loss (Score:2, Flamebait)
Weight loss is no mystery. It's simple math. Use up more calories than you consume.
Re:Weight loss (Score:5, Informative)
Cheap and clean fusion power is no mystery. All yo have to do is convert the 80% of energy released as useless waste neutrons into useful electricity.
Any event you can state as a simple sentence can be made to sound simpler than it actually is. Now I'm a bit of an outlier here, because I achieved a 100 pound weight loss and have sustained it over a decade, but the reason I was able to do this was that from the outset I researched the success rates and realized this was not going to be a simple and easy process.
It is true that *losing* weight is simple. That's why virtually every diet that's ever been proposed, even crackpot ones like the grapefruit diet, has been shown to work. What has never been demonstrated for *any* diet is sustainable weight loss over a a period of years. Four out of five people who attempt weight loss will, in the course of several years, be as heavy or heavier than when they started. That's because the process of weight loss sustainment is complex and multi-disciplinary. It requires knowledge of physiology, psychology, and anthropology and an ability to apply that knowledge.
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It requires knowledge of physiology, psychology, and anthropology and an ability to apply that knowledge.
Horseshit. While the "ability" part is fair enough, the rest is unnecessary. It requires you eat less food (or, alternately, make better food choices) and live a less sedentary lifestyle. It does not require any advanced knowledge, it requires not being lazy and getting past a food addiction. You think it's a coincidence that people from cultures with more active normal lifestyles where healthy eating is the norm rather than the exception (and a cultural stigma against being fat) are healthier overall a
Re:Weight loss (Score:4, Insightful)
it requires not being lazy and getting past a food addiction.
Your assertion is directly contradicted by the fact those pills actually work. That points to a biological issue, as opposed by a moral failing as you snottily imply.
the formula is simple
Looks to me like a bad case of Dunning-Kruger on display.
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Steroids work too, that doesn't mean that exercising doesn't build muscles.
Re:Weight loss (Score:4, Informative)
If you took steroids, you would likely gain a small amount of muscle mass without exercise. But you won't get swole. Those giant PED using body builders, strong men and power lifters put an incredible amount of time in at a gym, at a level of intensity most people can't begin imagine. It takes more than drugs, it takes dedication and sacrifice.
While steroids do increase protein synthesis, the major mechanism by which steroid users get freaking huge is a reduction in post-exercise recovery time. That allows them to endure higher volumes of exercise without tipping into a catabolic state.
If you are genetically gifted, you can get swole on exercise (and diet) alone, but most people can't achieve that look without drugs, and even those who can won't be able to compete on a professional level. However you'll be much healthier learning to live with your genetic potential. It's really discouraging how many famous athletes have been crippled or died while still quite young. It's not worth it.
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Those giant PED using body builders, strong men and power lifters put an incredible amount of time in at a gym, at a level of intensity most people can't begin [to] imagine. It takes more than drugs, it takes dedication and sacrifice.
And by sacrifice, he means severe joint degradation and tendon damage. Professional strong men effectively cripple themselves. Eddie Hall has released YouTube videos of himself seeking exotic treatments, including stem cell injections on a mass scale, in an effort to repair the damage.
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Your assertion is directly contradicted by the fact those pills actually work.
My assertion that healthy sustained weight loss does not "require knowledge of physiology, psychology, and anthropology" is directly contradicted by the fact that a drug works?
That points to a biological issue
Does it? I agree that "pills can help you lose weight" but does that suggest that there is some underlying biological issue preventing people from sustained, healthy weight loss? If we include 'psychological" in "biological" then, sure, I can go with that. Fighting addition isn't an easy thing, and, as I pointed out, I am a lazy, f
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That points to a biological issue, as opposed by a moral failing as you snottily imply.
What biological issue makes people get fat without eating?
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What biological issue makes people get fat without eating?
That's rather silly; you do know that there aren't any diets where people live without eating at all, do you?
But let me ask you: if it's all in the mind and there is no biological issue, how do those pills work (which was documented)? Do you somehow think those pills apply some thought control and make people suddenly able to stay on a diet and exercise regularly?
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They probably make you shit yourself like those olestra potato chips or other diet pills.
Re: Weight loss (Score:2)
Speaking from experience they make you really nauseous and not able to eat.
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That points to a biological issue
Why do you think it's an either or thing? The way our brain works is a biological issue. You're talking about two sides of the same coin.
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Why do you think it's an either or thing?
I, myself, agree there are both psychological and biological causes for a complex situation - it was the grandparent who thought it's "a very simple formula" - people being lazy. I was just pointing to him that his theory doesn't explain observed facts.
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Wegovy is an injection, not pills.
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I used "pills" as a short word for medication in general, not specifically referring to the particular presentation. I'll note however that the same compound (semaglutid) is also available in pill form, under the commercial name Rybelsus , though it's not sold as a weight loss product, but for diabetes treatment.
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If you don't understand how social processes affect your eating, exercise and sleeping patterns, you're starting out at a huge disadvantage.
Re:Weight loss (Score:4, Informative)
I should also point out: exercising more will make it much, much harder not to eat more calories. Your brain and endocrine system very persuasively resist any attempt to maintain that kind of calorie deficit.
You're really making my point here. It sounds really easy to establish a 3500 calorie deficit, and it is, but it's not easy to maintain a 3500 calorie deficit for, say, fifty two consecutive weeks. One of the challenges is measurement; a pound a week is a good goal from many perspectives because you won't provoke stress reactions that make you hungry and tired, but how do you know you're on track when your daily weight normally fluctuates by three or four pounds?
Now I can burn a thousand calories in an hour, although that will provoke a cortisol reaction that will make me very hungry and tired. But I can burn 450 calories an hour by exercising in what we call heart rate "zone 2" without provoking that stress reaction. So one physically realistic way to establish a 3500 calorie per week deficit is to spend 75 minutes per day in Zone 2 training. If I need to lose 100 pounds, I just have to keep that up every day *for two years*. Sound simple and easy? It's not. It's a lifestyle change.
The story on the diet side is similar. Slow and steady wins the race, but slow and steady is hard and tedious. It means weighing every serving of everything you eat and logging it for two years. Again, it's a lifestyle change. Either way, not understanding the psychology of change and the social and professional impacts is a recipe for failure.
Re:Weight loss (Score:4, Informative)
Translation, all you have to do is ignore the second most powerful biological drive just enough (too much is fatal, too little and you get the weight back) for the rest of your life while exercising more hours than you have available in a day.
Side effects include a constant feeling of fatigue, depression, and weakened immune response.
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Yes, discipline and exercise aren't fun. If eating a salad or skipping a meal weakens your immune system then you should probably see a doctor.
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And the doctor shrugs and has no idea what to do about it but suggests things that don't work. Kinda like seeing a doctor about ulcers back when western medicine was sure they cam from too much stress and worry and definitely not something that could be treated with antibiotics.
Sure, there are some people who eat terrible diets that can lose some weight with better eating habits. Then there are people who eat sensibly, get exercize and are still overweight. Many assume they must be lying because the facts
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This the core misunderstanding: they are fun for some people. Some people find exercise deeply satisfying. They like to do it. Others have very little resistance - for example a good gym may be in their apartment building or near their residence. As far as eating goes, some people are able to naturally maintain a healthy weight. "Discipline" and exercise require very little effort - it's very low cost, or it actually yields benefits.
Others however, never feel really f
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It's probably harder than rocket science. We still don't know why almost all animals have been gaining weight over the last several decades. This includes lab animals that are fed controlled diets. https://www.science.org/conten... [science.org]
As for consistently bur
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...What has never been demonstrated for *any* diet is sustainable weight loss over a a period of years. Four out of five people who attempt weight loss will, in the course of several years, be as heavy or heavier than when they started. That's because the process of weight loss sustainment is complex and multi-disciplinary. It requires knowledge of physiology, psychology, and anthropology and an ability to apply that knowledge.
It requires discipline. Plain and simple. Maybe if people didn't try and explain away simple food addiction under the guise of some "complex" formula of diet, mantras, and feel good walking beads from Jenny Craig, more would be successful at weight loss.
What HAS been demonstrated over and over again, is that discipline works. And not just for weight management. HUMAN management. An obese person 98% of the time is a human suffering from addiction. Plain and simple.
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That's because the process of weight loss sustainment is complex and multi-disciplinary. It requires knowledge of physiology, psychology, and anthropology and an ability to apply that knowledge.
Following the rule of using more calories than you consume works for long term as well.
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Probably the majority of people who are trying to lose weight aren't eating too much and still aren't burning fat.
The two big factors in weight loss are hunger/habitual eating and metabolism. Hunger is an almost irrepressable drive and, as such, it's a more important factor than net calories. Re: metabolism, it's easier to get someone to turn the heating down than to start going to the gym 3x a week. And the more weight you lose, the less metabolism is likely to help you.*
Exercising also tends to encourag
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That would be why being overweight is such a rare phenomenon and it's impossible to sell books or 'programs' claiming to help weight loss. It's just too simple for that.
Likewise, insomnia is stupid simple to solve. Just hold your breath until you pass out.
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Re:Streisand Effect? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody would have known about Barbara Streisand's house if she didn't try to stop people from publishing pictures of it. That's the Streisand Effect. Here we're talking about a *massive* PR campaign by the pharma company. While it's true that there's no such thing as bad publicity, if you are a reasonable candidate for a GLP-1 agonist it's virtually certain that campaign would have found you eventually. GLP-1 agonists are important diabetes medications, and the rapid increase in demand in response to the PR campaign has resulted in a nationwide shortage for diabetics well before this particular story came out. I don't think *talking about that* is going to make things worse.
The problem with drug advertisements is that pharmaceutical company ads are not as informative as the industry pretends. They play on emotion, and once they have you hooked they count on you not *wanting* to hear a more balanced view of the drug in question. Paying for news story placement is even worse, because it disguises advertising as coming from an impartial source.
It's early days yet, GLP-1 agonists appear to have a significant rebound effect, both in weight and cardiovascular disease markers, after discontinuation. I think they have enormous promise; giving similar results to some very difficult diet interventions for much less effort, but they're not a panacea that your doctor can prescribe and then you live happily ever after. If you have need of serious weight loss, you need to work with a bariatric medicine practice that can also help with the lifestyle interventions you'll need to sustain your initial weight loss.
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They don't really care if you hear about the drug or not. They just don't want bribing news shows to cut into their consulting agreements and CME junkets.
Pysician's Committe for Responsible Medicine (Score:2, Interesting)
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Follow the money, their claim is either right or wrong. When it comes to drug companies I would go with whoever is on the other side.
Re: Pysician's Committe for Responsible Medicine (Score:2)
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So... It's OK for drug companies to pay for "news" stories that give only one side of the story?
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60 minutes knows their audience, the aging and elderly. Next you're going to see sponsored content for mobility scooters, denture adhesive, those bath tubs with the door on the side, etc etc.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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It uses a difficult to define but nice and authoritative sounding word like "responsible" to obfuscate that they have a specific agenda to push. Because the word has no binding legal definition, it can't be challenged as being misleading or false (see also: words like "natural" and "ethical"). So people who don't bother to do much research on who is pushing what take the story at face value. After all, who can argue against "responsible" medici
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Even if they are an advocacy group for vegan food, and even if we don't agree with what they are advocating, it does not mean that what they are alleging is false.
That being said, I found this article [acsh.org], which may indicate that your opinion is justified. Seems that although the name implies that there are a lot of physicians in the group, physicians actually constitute about 10%. This smells of misdirection, it is hard to trust what they say.
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What does that have to do with 60 minutes doing sponsored content without saying so?
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Well, 60 minutes isn't what it used to be. Neither is broadcast tv. Or cable tv. Or anything for that matter. I think 60 minutes is riding along on past glories but is essentially just another for-profit tv show desparate for viewers in a declining market. No different from all the other news outlets who a new boss who insists on pushing more click bait stories. "Don't rake the muck, sell the muck!"
The question is whether 60 minutes will issue an apology and a follow up episode discussing the controve
Zealots have some value in society (Score:2)
> is a radical vegan group that wants [mainstream meds] removed from the market.
Sometimes zealots are the only ones motivated enough to dig for or report problems. Just because they are biased doesn't necessarily mean they didn't discover a violation of medical regulations. Let's let the investigation play out.
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Well, as a Type 2 Diabetic, a significant amount of my annual co-pay goes for a medicine that wasn't available 20 years ago. One can argue whether new patented prescription medicines should cost as much as they do, but the argument that "we're spending more money" IGNORES the fact that SOME OF THAT MONEY has gone for new, more effective therapies.
But I would like to see a ban on prescription drug advertising. I've seen ads for diabetes therapies, and I find them directly offensive (as opposed to other pres
Re: The free market (Score:2)
Re:The free market (Score:4, Interesting)
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My physician pointed me to the Freestyle sensor (not any damn ad!) I really like it, enough that I pay for it myself, even though it's not covered by Medicare (except in extreme situations...)
That being said, if a future Apple Watch comes with blood sugar monitoring, I'll buy it. (I dislike wearing a watch, haven't worn one for 40 years...) At $75/month for the Freestyle sensors, the watch will pay for itself in a year.
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Not all type 2 diabetes is directly attributable to excess weight! Now I could stand to lose some pounds, but even when I was skinnier and younger, I was pre-diabetic, and my weight has been stable for the last 20 years that I've had diagnosed diabetes. In my case it's bad genes; Type 2 runs in my family.
(Kinda reminds me of the first doctor I saw after a routine physical's blood test diagnosed high cholesterol. He insisted that was genetic, even though I could go back several generations and show no par
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When I started, this was patented as Trilipix: https://www.drugs.com/trilipix... [drugs.com] And as a patented medicine, the co-pay was high even on my good corporate insurance. It went generic maybe 10? years ago. The generic name is Fenofibric Acid. https://www.drugs.com/mtm/feno... [drugs.com]
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Thank you!
It was an advertorial (Score:4, Insightful)
I watched it.
My first thought at the end was: advertorial.
Doesn't represent all the facts (Score:5, Informative)
Also, it is true that 60 minutes should be unbiased and fair, particularly when it comes to drugs not only because drugs always have a complex picture but also because it is required by regulation.
Caveats out of the way, Wegovy does deserve some of the praise it's getting. It's not going to make your dad bod go away, but for people with serious chronic weight issues who struggle with weight loss programs and starvation to try and lose weight, it is showing tremendous efficacy.
More importantly, the common side effects encountered during trials aren't horrible. The most common side effects [rxlist.com] reported during the trial were nausea, vomiting, and digestive issues, but only enough where 6.8% of patients chose to discontinue the drug to stop the side effects. That's an important distinction, because from an upside perspective, during trials 83% of patients over 68 week course lost 5% or more of body weight or an average of 35 pounds [drugs.com]. When obesity is a gateway to many other issues that are hard to deal with like diabetes and heart disease and osteoporosis, and the positive impact this had, and the fact that all reported side effects in trials were the kind that go away just by stopping taking the drug, then the benefits overall to society and people's health does seem to outweigh the overall risk factors.
The broader controversy with Wegovy is that there is reported weight gain back once you stop the course, it is fairly expensive, and insurance coverage for weight loss drugs are spotty as weight loss is tied to lifestyle choices. So the real issue with Wegovy has to do with economics, drug pricing and recidivism, but those are also potentially solvable issues in light of the positive medical results.
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As someone else stated above, the group bringing this up has a history of being against all drugs and focused on preventative medicine and vegan based diets as cures for things. while there's value in that statement, there are people who do need drugs to survive for many conditions, and there are people who have serious medical conditions that lead to chronic weight problems. So their absolutist position is somewhat controversial.
Also, it is true that 60 minutes should be unbiased and fair, particularly when it comes to drugs not only because drugs always have a complex picture but also because it is required by regulation.
The group might be a bit nutty but dodges the central question. Was the story a paid advertisement?
The summary (and even the article) treat the claim it was a paid advertisement almost as a fact... but the drug maker does make a denial:
Novo Nordisk did not provide any payment or sponsorship to CBS 60 Minutes for their reporting on obesity as part of a news segment that aired on January 1, 2023, and we did not control any of the content or have any role in identifying or selecting the doctors and patients fe
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CBS isnt a reputable news organization. Look how they treated Rather they kept him around even after he knowingly presented unverified documents about W. Bush's military services as reliable; rather than pay out his contract and send him walking.
CBS is all about the $$$, just like most of big media giants at this point. They journalistic and ethical standards they hold themsevles to are well below the minimums required to maintain any level of credibility but for two things.
1) Inertia.
2) They all circle the
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CBS isnt a reputable news organization. Look how they treated Rather they kept him around even after he knowingly presented unverified documents about W. Bush's military services as reliable; rather than pay out his contract and send him walking.
CBS is all about the $$$, just like most of big media giants at this point. They journalistic and ethical standards they hold themsevles to are well below the minimums required to maintain any level of credibility but for two things.
1) Inertia.
2) They all circle the wagons and brand anyone who questions their narrative as a 'truther' or 'conspiracy nutter' or accuse them of being a foreign agent spreading disinformation.
I think that Rather thought they were authenticated, I think the Killian documents controversy [wikipedia.org] is better seen as an example of confirmation bias. Everyone "knew" that Bush had gotten preferential treatment but it all historical recollection and/or second hand info. Then they get documents that look legit from a source that seems reliable and the people who knew the claimed author seem to agree it sounds he wrote it.
Rather as the face of the story was accountable, but it sounds like the producers were the ma
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Yeah... two publicly traded corporations with auditable finances combined with the sheer number of people involved behind the scenes with a TV production plus doctors and journalists who may discover their own sense of ethics at any time...
That's not exactly a formula for keeping a conspiracy to buy a paid advertisement and masquerade it as a story on a major news program any kind of secret.
Sure, but ... (Score:2)
The problem with so many drugs (practically all of them that aren't designed to kill of a particular virus or bacterial infection) is, they're band-aid fixes for core problems.
A good friend of mine deals in Medicare supplement plans (sells other insurance too but that's her "bread and butter" she specializes in). Over the years, she's noticed a number of trends with people's drug prescriptions. A big one is that almost EVERY customer she deals with over the age of 65 is taking a blood pressure medication of
Re:Sure, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Part of it is an epidemic of obesity that is obvious when you look around (I'm guilty here too).
But another part is that high blood pressure used to kill you pretty quickly and now it mostly doesn't. The drugs are quite effective, they are quite cheap, have low levels of side-effects and so more people are being put on them almost as soon as they fall outside the normal range. Before, there was a lot of resistance due to cost and lack of data on effectiveness, but now that that ship has sailed, you see huge uptakes. Which is fantastic for marginalized communities that had ridiculously high death rates due to untreated blood pressure that have now plummeted.
The flip-side of that is you have many more people on BP meds - but given the costs (some are less than $10 / month), the tradeoff in quality and length of life are totally worth it.
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I feel like almost all of these medical weight loss procedures or drugs are the same way. They're not addressing the core problems causing the obesity. They're just promising solutions that are both temporary and often causing other really bad side effects.
Yes. The core problems causing a high incidence of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and dementia, are both simple and complicated. They're simple in that "eliminate sucrose, most fructose, refined carbohydrates, refined / modified oils, processed meats, and anything inflammatory from your diet, then eat lots of healthy fats and proteins, and get more exercise" is a straightforward prescription for losing weight and being metabolically much healthier.
They're complicated in that a) the whole world was hoodwi
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Most people when they talk about the obesity epidemic they point to a few typical villains. Things like "overuse of high fructose corn syrup!" or "McDonalds and it's unhealthy food choi
Re:Doesn't represent all the facts (Score:5, Informative)
I started Wegovy 10 days ago. It is actually kind of amazing - definitely curbs appetite but does not prevent you from enjoying what you eat. The biggest side-effect for me is that it can sometimes kick in a little late - while it suppresses your appetite, it won't magically change how you eat. If one of your issues is eating a little fast, you can get a little ahead of the "hey, I'm full" signal and eat a little more than the drug wants you to. And then you get a full on "damn, I massively overate" signal that brings on some nausea (just happened with lunch - I had a small lunch but ate faster at my desk than I should and now I'm feeling the side effects).
But even that side-effect is good, from my opinion. I am much more deliberate in the rate at which I eat and stop as soon as I start feeling even a hint of fullness or mild nausea. And I've lost 15 pounds - some of that is undoubtedly water weight but my shirts and pants already fit different.
I have had a bit of dizzyness (it also regulates insulin fairly aggressively) which is the only side-effect that is truly annoying. But I get the feeling that if I continue (and I'm on the initial month of super-low doses), I'm gonna lose a lot of weight. And continuing is pretty damn simple - one shot a week. You really don't need a lot of willpower once it's in your bloodstream.
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TV is catching up to Magazines. (Score:5, Informative)
Need to remove advertising from news (Score:4, Insightful)
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NPR does this. It used to be all public funded, but quickly needed to get more. Now it receives money various sources: https://www.npr.org/about-npr/... [npr.org]
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And yet despite getting money from Archer Daniels Midland, they have actually reported stories negative to Archer Daniels Midland. Also NPR does very clearly indicate if one of the companies they report on in a story is actually a sponsor.
The problem comes when too much money is all from the private sector so that you can't effectively criticize the donors and stay on the air. Right now though, fees from member stations account for 32% of revenue (from that chart), corporate is 37% but not all of that is
R.I.P. 60 Minutes (Score:3, Insightful)
If this is true, then 60 minutes is no longer a legitimate news program.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably is true. may have more problems that come out.
1 news org should get credit for bashing another exposing such things...
Does not mean they are dead; fire people, jail people, hopefully end their news careers (I'm sure FOX will still hire them.)
Writing off organizations for things their people do excludes the possibility it turns out way better! The bad eggs being gone with added sensitivity it can be better. You want your whole dept fired because 1 jerkwad fucked something up?
The show left me with questions.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I felt it was a heavily one-sided piece, and it really was played as an 'only good things, why is the gov't denying everyone this' ad.
One question I have is what happens with Wegovy long-term? This wasn't discussed at all.
Are you on Wegovy your whole life? Do you take until a desired amount of weight is lost, and then go off it? What are the long-term studies on this, do those people actually keep the weight off? None of this was discussed.
One of the people interviewed said something along the lines of 'obesity is a disease, and it needs to be treated with medicine like a disease'. But I don't know if that's really accurate, and plenty of (most?) people have lost weight without 'medicine'. I don't know if it's really a 'disease', or if that's an excuse to sell 'medicine'.
It was a pretty bad piece. Not that 60 Minutes is particularly thorough any time, but this was well below even their low bar of standards.
See-BS (Score:2)
Cue up the 60 Minutes News Team (Score:2)
Pfizer has been getting 24/7 free ads for years (Score:2, Troll)
Knock at the door (Score:2)
People are going to have a helluva time getting in to work there now. Everybody at 60 Minutes knows better than to open the door when 60 minutes is knocking on it.
I don't understand drug ads (Score:2)
The vast majority of drug ads are for relatively serious conditions that I'd be talking to my doctor about. Also you generally need a prescription so you'll be talking to your doctor anyway. For these sorts of things I would defer to my doctor's suggested treatment, not what a TV ad is telling me. The doctor knows what the drug options are for a given treatment (typically multiple), and will go over the options with me. Do people really go to their doctor and say "hey, I saw a commercial for drug X to trea
Re: (Score:1)
Well, they pay for TV so I guess they're fine with me. I hit the mute button so I don't have to listen to the long list of terrible side effects, and try to guess what they're selling from the action on the screen. Then I try to pronounce the name of the drug. Hilarity ensues.
No, actually I flip through the channels until there's a non-ad on.
Great (Score:2)
Now I can't trust the show 60 Minutes because I don't know if they are running a shill peice or not.
We neex to go back to pre 1996/1997 and ban all television advertising for these drugs. I don't want to hear about how side effects include explosive diarreah and massive heart failure over a scene of a happy carnival with upbeat music and sunshine. I don't want to see these drugs of very questionable value being pushed on the public, most who don't know any better and will take the commercials at face value