The title says it all, though I’m not really pitting this (mpsims didn’t seem like it’d fit right and I know this will probably turn into a pitworthy thread anyway)
Some thoughts on this:
If there is nothing for the drug industry to hide why warn of him? (yes, this is something of a trick question. I am biased, I am pro socialized medicine [I don’t know much about this project but I’d assume that it is as well]. While I agree with his message in the work of his that I’ve seen I do understand [thanks to threads on these boards] his method in some parts of his work is deceptive and have argued that point with people who think he’s their own personal J.C. (yeah, the whole scene with him trying to get representitives to sign their over 18, independant kids into the military was a great scene, though their reactions spoke volumes).
You don’t think he’ll hear about this and, oh, I don’t know, take off the baseball hat and take a shower (heh, had to say it)?
anyway… thought I’d bring this bit of news to your attention.
It isn’t always a question of whether you have something to hide, but of whether the person coming after you has an agenda. Recall the roque prosecutors of the 1980s in North Carolina, Florida, and California, who used disreputable and deceptive tactics to create bogus child abuse scandals out of whole cloth. Lives of people with nothing to hide were destroyed. If something doesn’t stink, but Michael Moore wants it to, he’ll cover it with shit,
Liberal’s got it. I knew a couple of guys who worked PR for a major drug company and they also had a rule against talking to the National Enquirer, Weekly World News, or other gossip rags. Does that mean they had something to hide? Nope.
Seems to me that most of the orgs Moore has targeted have had PLENTY of shit to hide. Wouldn’t be at ALL surprised that that was true of the big drug firms which have a well-established history of skullduggery. The thing that makes Moore successful is that he picks his targets very well.
I’m a liberal (in the modern, American use of the word) and have liked much of what I’ve seen of Moore’s work, though I haven’t seen Fahrenheit 911. Yet I work in the medical field, in research (for a hospital, not a drug company), and I sure as hell wouldn’t talk to him. Then again, I wouldn’t talk to any other reporter that called me up, other than to answer the most basic of questions and then refer to my boss and/or our PR department. There’s no way I’m going to misstate something and end up getting us some massively bad PR, and I expect many other health-care/medical research workers feel the same way.
What Liberal said. Also, even if Moore’s complaints about the drug companies are valid (which they won’t be) it is still perfectly reasonable for them to remind employees to act appropriately. Big companies have communications departments for a reason. It’s not the role of every shmuck who works there to answer questions from the press or from Michael Moore.
Ah, yes, nothing like the good ol’ fashioned pre-emptive strike. “We already know Moore is going to lie, so don’t listen!” Nothing like a wee dram of vitriol in the well, eh? And, after all, its not like we have even the slightest reason to be mistrustful, seeing as how all evidence indicates that Big Pharm is an enterprise devoted to our nation’s health and well-being, scraping just enough profit to continue in its monastic devotion to others. Mmmm, yes. Quite.
Here’s another point to consider - say that Moore said essentially “I’m going after the pharmaceutical companies next,” and the companies didn’t put out any “don’t talk to Moore” memos. You’d get enough employees who’d say “Call our PR department” when questioned, but I’m sure you’d also get some who’d throw in a “screw you, you lousy hack.” Nightmare moment for the companies in question, as what looks worse than “no comment”? Scenes of your employees getting hostile.
I’ll add that memos like that is probably not uncommon for other similar happenings. A couple months ago regarding a study I’m involved in and a drug that was submitted to the FDA for approval, the FDA requested a list of sites participating in the study, which typically means they’re going to inspect some sites. The company E-mailed the sites to notify them, then mailed out a letter detailing the steps to take should we be contacted. (Notify the company of the inspection, schedule it promptly, do not provide the FDA with any identifying information about the patients so as to preserve privacy, etc.)
I’ll never understand the seemingly frequent perception that drug companies are evil, money grubbing thieves. It takes a great deal of money to fund the research for a new product and most of the time it ends up heading down a false trail. Ony a few times out of many does the line followed ever turn out to be correct. Then there’s the time and expense it takes to do testing and then get it approved by the FDA and then the marketing expense to make known and available to doctors and the public. Then it’s only protected for so many years before any other company can come in, replicate it and cut profits in half.
The few times a product is successful it can provide research dollars for hundreds of additional tries. I have no problem with paying more for a drug that may save my life and fund the development of similar successes in the future.
So the medical personnell and researchers are paid well. Based on their educations and professional caliber, you’d kinda expect that and I for one don’t have a problem with it.
Those profits that are above and beyound the future research dollars needed go in large part to the company shareholders, guys like you and me. Again, how is that different from any other company?
To be fair, a significant portion of our household income come from just such a company but I’d like to think that my sympathy comes not from being bought but from seeing the other side. Drug companies employ exceptional regular people and yes, a substantial proportion of them really do care.
You don’t get it, lieu. Corporations are Evil. They make money, and we all know how wrong that is. We’d all be much better off if the government was responsible for researching, creating and testing new drugs. Then things would be run much more efficiently and fairly. After all, once the government shines it’s goodness upon something there can never be any ill effect. As more and more industries are taken from the Evil private sector robber barons and controlled by government we move closer and closer to the wondrous publicly owned socialist ideal.
Right, the problem with Michael Moore is that he doesn’t collect interviews and try to present both sides of an issue, he’ll just show up with his camera crew, start banging on doors, and show any hesitation on the part of any employee to answer all of his questions as a giant cover-up.
Look at that interview with Heston in Bowling for Columbine. Doubtless Heston had some valid arguments in the time spent talking to Michael Moore, but you don’t see any of them. All it is is Heston sitting down, showing what in retrospect might be related to his early alzheimers, and then leaving, even though the clock on the wall shows that a good deal of time has passed. Look at how he clipped together scenes from Heston at different confrences that clearly imply them being at Denver, when in fact none of them were from the Denver confrence.
This is why bias doesn’t work well for documentarians. Michael Moore can go on preaching to the choir, but nobody with a real sense of intellectual integrity will bother to look at his work because they know that if he comes up with a point that doesn’t fit his preconceived notions, he’ll just ignore it. Hence a lack of common dialog, more people turning to FoxNews, increasingly divided nation, talking at one another, yada, yada, yada…
As a matter of fact, they ARE evil and they’re running shit scared of Michael Moore becaues he’s an avenging angel of God. I’m getting really sick of whiny conservative bitches who have never seen a Michael Moore movie slandering the guy and shitting all over him becaues he’s made a career out of exposing what a sham their fucking capitalist ideology really is.
These companies are afraid opf Moore because they are criminals and they don’t want to get caught. It’s a s simple as that. Fuck these facist assholes for trying to oppress the free speech of their employees and double fuck anyone who defends them. Why is it that the same people who are paranoid about the government (which the have some control over) and cry the most about freedom are always so willing to show such slavering obeisience to corporations (which they don’t).
Go, Michael go. Drive these Satantic, Nazi cocksuckers into the ground! The only sane, rational and MORAL solution to the health care crisis is to socialize it.
I have seen Michael Moore’s movies, and I think he’s a hatchet man. It has nothing to do with ideology, it has to do with how he can make anything and anyone look bad with selective editing.
I agree with you about socialized medicine (to a point), and I know that the drug companies price-gouge (how is it possible to get the same drug cheaper after it’s EXPORTED?), but Satanic and Nazi? Give us all a break from your exaggerations. They’re providing a service and they want to make a buck. There’s nothing unreasonable about that on the face of it, it’s how they do it that’s somewhat objectionable. But they are in no way comparable to the Nazis.
Diogenes you have become a parody of yourself. You are the perfect example of an irrational left wing nutjob who has quite simply lost it. You do whatever side of an argument you are on a disservice.
What are you still doing here? We’re not getting anything out of this. You’re boring. Predictable. Spent. I’m sure that you don’t even enjoy posting here anymore. Think of what it must be doing to your stress level and blood pressure.
Please, Dio. Please, go to the democratic underground. They will like you there. You’ll fit in. They think that corporations are evil satanic nazi cocksuckers too. They want the same socialist paradise that you do. Join them. It’s really the best thing for you and for us.
Oh - I thought Diogenes’ post was a joke. Alrighty, then.
Moore’s work is obviously slanted and biased, and anybody watching with half a brain gets that. He is also presenting a point-of-view that is startlingly absent from mainstream media, who are still pretending to be fair and balanced, and present opinion pieces as hard news.
As for employees being told not to talk to Moore, I personally got in trouble with a boss a long time ago when I talked to a reporter about something my boss was doing, and it turned out I didn’t have the whole story (what employee ever does?), and misrepresented him.
