And they just won’t stop! That’s what Bob Ehrlich, a former Warner-Lambert exec who now runs DTC Perspectives consulting, make clear in his latest essay, which he e-mailed around the industry. Drugmakers, which are used to the ”tight control of information,” may find harnessing this new media could be a ”nightmare.”

“You cannot control them or measure them as with other media. Yet they exist, and are influential for opinion leaders. A bad posting on a blog, whether rumor or fact, can be passed on to thousands or millions as many blogs are re-listed on other blogger sites,” he points out. “Bloggers also give drug insiders a chance to be a whistleblower with anonymous postings. These could be salespeople reporting off label violations, R&D people admitting having hidden clinical results, or physicians discussing negative experiences with drugs.”

Take the AstraZeneca ‘bucket of money’ scandal. What began with the disclosure of an internal newsletter on this site and others led to allegations by anonymous employees of off-label marketing. The mainstream media largely ignored the saga, but the drugmaker was forced to acknowledge that a problem existed, and now claims it conducted a probe and disciplined some employees (although many questions remain unanswered). The episode attracted the attention of Congressman Pete Stark, who’s asked the HHS Inspector General to investigate.

“In this new world of blogging, drug companies are going to have to deal with a high volume of unregulated drug information. Just keeping a tab on what is being said probably takes a full time person screening the major blog sites,” he writes. “Like it or not drug companies will be forced to respond to a blogger story. After all, blogs multiply and will not just die like the good old days of a bad network news story.”

But he speculates that blogs can be a “dominant consumer tool aimed at reviewing drug performance, side effects and risks…may soon be a key tool in spreading word of mouth on new drugs. This may especially be important if FDA is given the power to ban DTC on new drugs, currently being discussed in Congress.”

“Consumers will learn to accept blogs as a counter to other sources of medical information, DTC included. This will be a messy process, because some blogs are factual and some are based on erroneous opinion or data. Drug companies need to take blogs seriously because consumers increasingly use them and will rely on them as much as main media for information.”

This is really common sense. Drugmakers, though, are still trying to get their arms around this new media, and some say privately that they’re sorting out which blogs to take seriously and which they hope to be able to ignore, and everything in between. If a word of advice may be offered: don’t rush to ignore those deemed unfavorable. Engagement is the only way to get one’s point of view across. After all, even Condoleezza Rice met with the Syrian government.

Of course, this new frontier will likely work both ways. A few of the more prominent pharma blogs are written anonymously - and not all have a negative slant about the industry. Most likely, it won’t be long before anonymous blogs run by marketing departments or paid consultants will be used to counteract the independent thinkers in cyberspace. Some call this disinformation. Others may think of it as getting ahead of the curve.

Whatever happens next, Ehrlich is correct. Blogs are different animals and require new thinking. But the issue isn’t just for the public relations staff to mull over - legal, HR, finance and, of course, marketing are among the many departments that have no choice but to pay attention. Once again, the medium is the message.

[tags]AstraZeneca Scandal, Blogs, DTC, Public Relations[/tags]