With all the talk about Michael Moore’s SiCKO, you can be forgiven for forgetting about Innerstate, a 58-minute documentary about people who suffer from psoriasis, Crohn’s disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. The flick debuted in New York three months ago and is now being screened in select theaters. And it was made by Johnson & Johnson’s Centocor unit, which sells Remicade, an expensive med that treats those maladies. The rub: is this a movie or a thinly disguised piece of promotion?

The drug isn’t named in the movie, but at an April screening in the Philadelphia area, material that accompanied a DVD that apparently is now being distributed at the screenings, does contain a ‘Viewer’s Guide’ mentioning the med and side effects. And so a union that objects to Remicade pricing complained to PhRMA that Centorcor is attempting to circumvent industry guidelines on DTC advertising, and wants the trade group to investigate J&J for violations.

The response from PhRMA: a big shrug. In a May 23 letter, the trade group writes that its DTC principles “do not address the type of media identified in the press release.” And PhRMA promised to share the union’s “statement” with Centocor. Not clear what Paul Antony, who heads PhRMA’s Office of Accountability meant by press release, but clearly he was stumped by the mention of a viewer’s guide. In any event, here’s the press kit.

The lack of a meaningful reply is hardly surprising. PhRMA is a trade group, after all, not a regulator. Yet this comes just as PhRMA releases a fluffy report about its efforts to monitor DTC complaints. The inability to address a clever promotional film, however, is only the latest example that the trade group is wholly unprepared - or is it unwilling? - to tackle the sujbect head-on. Why bother having an Office of Accountability?