Drug Cos. Pushing Celebrity Message

Tuesday, January 2nd 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning to a tactic that gets their drugs and the conditions they treat in the news â€” paying celebrities to tell reporters about their own struggles with illness.

The marketing campaigns produce human-interest stories that have raised some concerns about a further blurring of the line between news and commercial messages.

Unlike celebrity endorsements in commercials, which have been common for several years, the recent campaigns have been aimed at the news sections of newspapers and TV, where personalities like former gymnast Bart Connor or former Olympic gold medalist Dorothy Hamill speak favorably about products for arthritis and other ailments.

Some of the celebrity appearances resemble public service campaigns about common and treatable medical conditions such as high cholesterol, without referring to a specific drug the company makes to treat the condition. In other cases, celebrities are hired to mention specific drugs in the interviews.

Pfizer spokeswoman Celeste Torello contended that the commercial relationship between the company and their celebrity hires is ``made very clear to the journalists. ... It's really then up to the journalists to decide in the final story how much or how little of that relationship to mention.''

In one such campaign, Connor was paid to discuss how he was treating his osteoarthritis with Celebrex, made by Pfizer and G.D. Searle & Co. Several news stories resulting from the campaign, including articles in the New York Daily News and The Associated Press and an appearance on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America,'' did not make clear that Connor was paid.

Todd Polkes, a spokesman for ABC, said his operation was ``unaware of Bart Connor's relationship with Celebrex going into the interview. We are very diligent about disclosing information like this on the air, and in this case, unfortunately it slipped through the cracks.''

A Daily News spokesman, Ken Frydman, said his newspaper discourages promotional stories ``but every once in a while a commercial reference finds its way into print.''

Kelly Smith Tunney, director of corporate communications for the AP, said the news agency also questions the news value of such promotional stories. In instances where an endorser's comments are judged newsworthy, ``it is the reporter's responsibility to ask if he or she is paid by the manufacturer of the product and to include that information in the story. You can be certain we'll be more vigilant in the future.''

Pfizer also has paid Julie Krone, a former top female jockey who retired last year after struggling with depression, to promote Zoloft, an anti-depressant she takes. Profiles of Krone and her struggles appeared in several news outlets.

Merck & Co., in another campaign, paid former athletes Bruce Jenner and Hamill to give numerous interviews to news organizations this fall and discuss Vioxx, an anti-inflammatory medicine they both use to treat arthritis. Several newspapers and TV news shows did stories on one or both of them.

Chris Fanelle, director of public affairs at Merck & Co., says the company has used celebrities in six separate campaigns this year to raise awareness of health issues, compared with one or two campaigns each of the previous six years.

Other celebrity campaigns this year for Merck included a high cholesterol awareness campaign involving Bill Parcells and Joe Montana; and an osteoporosis campaign by former actress Rita Moreno.

Some are troubled by the migration of celebrity messages about health conditions and drugs to the news pages.

Nancy Chockley, president of the National Institute for Health Care Management, a non-profit research organization in Washington, says it's not always apparent that celebrities are acting as paid spokesmen.

``It's complicated because you want to get attention about a condition,'' Chockley said. ``But really what's happening is they're selling drugs, so it is somewhat insidious. We know it's effective, but we also know that it's confusing.''

Hamill, Connor, Jenner and Krone did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Nancy Ostrove, a senior official at the Food and Drug Administration's division of drug marketing, advertising and communications, says her agency keeps a close eye on promotional campaigns by drug companies and has received no complaints about lack of disclosure of celebrities working as spokesmen.