One of the more interesting exercises conducted by drugmakers involves monitoring what is written about their products on the Internet. This is no easy task, given the enormous volume of verbiage. To cope, assorted experts are retained, but the actual inner workings of such efforts rarely come to light. AstraZeneca, however, is encountering an embarassing moment. The drugmaker appears to have hiredvFluence Interactive, which uses proprietary data mining tools and analytics to keep tabs on "relevant and influential content."
Late last week, vFluence posted an item claiming its site was hacked by an unnamed blogger (see this), which came in apparent response to a post on 'Is Something Not Quite Right With Stan - A Mental Health Blog.' This particular site (see here) accessed reports written by vFluence concerning AstraZeneca and its Seroquel antipsychotic, which is the subject of thousands of lawsuits charging the drugmaker with failing to disclose diabetes risks associated with the pill. AstraZeneca, by the way, just paid a $520 million fine for off-label marketing (see here).
The 'Stan' site, as you can see, contains a few summaries of what some blogs, such as PharmaGossip, have written about Seroquel. And the revelation has prompted a few bloggers to criticize AstraZeneca for monitoring various blogs. Meanwhile, 'Stan' denies any hacking: "They left their site door wide open to public viewing, and I simply peered in..." The link 'Stan' provides, however, is now disabled.
vFluence is run by Jay Byrne, who previously headed public affairs at Monsanto (see here) and worked for the US Agency for International Development. For his part, Byrne tells us that 'Stan' gained access to the site, not by merely clicking on readily available links, but entered through a data entry portal by repeatedly attempting to log in with passcodes and typing in code. "You can argue about the definition of hacking, but he didn't just click on a link," says Byrne, who declined to confirm that AstraZeneca is a client. "And it's odd to me that people who say things in the public realm should take offense that anyone is paying attention. Everyone in health care should be aware and pay attention to what's being said about them online. We're not going after anyone's personal information."
Separately, Byrne also post an item in which he maintains drugmakers "seek to responsibly use (online) data to (sic) in best interests of the patient communities they serve." An AstraZeneca spokesman declined to say anything specific about vFluence, but did write that "we believe it is important to read what is openly written about the business and our medicines to better understand issues that are important to journalists, bloggers and the public."
In other words, having access to as much information as possible. This should not come as a surprise. Companies of all stripes regularly engage in what is called business intelligence, which includes tracking what is written on the Internet. Whether this episode involved hacking is another matter. Interestingly, though, the drugmaker's desire to have an opportunity to review relevant information about its medicines sounds like something that has come up in the litigation.
Hat tip to Soulful Sepulcher and Bnet
17 Comments
This is old news. This was happening on usenet years ago. For a period of about three years mid 2000s, until blogs came onto the scene, pharma had hacks riding all the usenet groups, some health webites, and even tried to infiltrate some Yahoo anti pharma groups. Their purpose was to discredit patient insurgents who were daily, posting information about suppression of negative effects, physician conflict of interest and marketing lies. They didn't stop us. They failed at the former too.
Burn wrote: "...You can argue about the definition of hacking, but he didn’t just click on a link,” says Byrne..."
OK, let's analyse this, briefly (because briefly is about all I can stomach of this)...
1. Stan says he clicked on a link and was in (which I don't think fulfils anybody's definition of hacking, otherwise I just hacked Pharmalot!); and 2. Burn says Stan hacked, and describes how.
Ergo, somebody's lying.
F-luents doesn't understand anything that's said about its clients, because it has no communication skills, whatsoever.
Matt
Also, explain how I could click on the document on Stan's blog and view the page. Something had a massive glitch in the v-Fluence monitoring page if I could click on it, read all of it, see the articles (including one of mine re:Lilly).....
Interesting how they are keeping a file on the monitoring of Robert Whitaker's activities, due to his new book, and it discusses how they didn't want him to be able to attend the APA to sell the book....fascinating reading, and yes, we know things are tracked...but this was underground, and promotes the tracking of an individual's activities, where will they show up? Why prevent the sale of Robert Whitaker's book?
Because it highlights damage done via pharmaceuticals to patients, and has evidence with studies showing patients do better OFF antipsychotics (AstraZeneca, Seroquel, et al).
Spinning this story to who was able to stumble upon the document is a PR predictable reaction.
The facts remain, last week the DOJ smacked down AstraZeneca for $520 million dollars, and the patient advocates and health blog writers who seek truth and transparency are not going away.
The viewing of an "internal" but public page of any website with a discoverable URL -- as we all did, this past weekend -- cannot be hacking, by definition. [I am flattered to have appeared on those pages, too.]
So -- if the page has a discoverable URL (is not shielded by a firewall, password or secure socket layer), it is properly viewable -- and viewable by all. The consultant is embarrassed by his gaffe, so he calls it hacking, in a vain attempt to save face before his clients. Reputation, Fail.
Less clear (as a matter of law) is whether the internal page may be "imaged", and then reposted, on another site. The original page owner has at least an arguable copyright interest in the uniquely aggregated content. A right he may very well assert, against people like Stan. But fair use summaries of what appeared there -- is in the public domain, now. It is freed.
As irony would have it, the subjects of this thread are, in some ways, the mirror images of Ed's iBio thread, above.
Here, right to access information left out on the public stoop -- there, listening in on, reporting, criticizing and covering public speaking engagements.
Cool.
~~~~~~~ IRONY ALERT ~~~~~~~
This is from the v-fluence website -- the "e-brochure" for selling its online "e-voices monitoring" capabilities and services:
". . . .Reflecting on our ten years of experience monitoring online environments for specific therapeutic areas and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole, we caution[ about] the challenges of effective and responsible online monitoring and corresponding regulatory reporting requirements. . . ."
[One such challenge would presumably include not being outed. Fail.] Continuing, now:
". . . .Alternative product, litigator and off-shore pharmacy marketing interests are among the sources which influence adverse event related content found on the web. . . these adverse event related claims may be processed by online patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals to form opinions that drive treatment adoption and/or compliance actions. . . .
The challenges for providing accurate market analysis and responsible online monitoring today has expanded; our company now covers spaces and technologies the FDA has yet to fully evaluate like iPhone and other mobile platform “apps” and increasingly accessible Deep Web content via The Cloud. . . ."
Oooh -- sounds expert-y!
But not. so. much. apparently.
नमस्ते
It was an irony alert with your first post Condor. You stable ponies always go the legal argument. You have no ethical one.
Not guilty does not mean the same thing as innocent.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall when V-Fluence next meet with AZ!
A case of "Gonzo Monitoring" to paraphrase Hunter S Thompson.
Cached Pages 101
If clicking on links constitues hacking then sue me silly. I've probably gone further in digging for removed but cached documents and pages.
Anyone with a little time to invest might be able to find that (or any) "disabled" page. The thing about cached pages is, depending on what search engine you use (there are a lot of them), the pages may be held for a couple of days or a couple of months. Print cached documents immediately if you find them. Page scrubbers will not remove pages from every search engine- but time will.
Looks like vFluence blew it and is trying to pass the buck.
Don't write anything that you do not want people to read. There is nothing private on the interweb.
A couple of years ago BIO monitored my blog after I posted an article that it didn't like about biosimilar that I penned. While it was a little frightening to get a call from BIO's general counsel, I felt that I had finally made my mark and was on the map. Not only was I flattered that BIO was monitoring my blog, it gave me fodder for another post similar to one on the mental health blog. Talk about increased traffic to BioJobBlog....Also, I know that Bristol Myers Squibb used to monitor my blog.
Sadly, I have become less controversial with age and I haven't been fired or received any other threatening calls from lawyers. Maybe I ought to ramp it up a notch?
Hello riv --
I am thrilled that you've brought up the "ethics" of this situation.
As I understand your decidely derisive view of my position, you would tell us that "monitoring" our posts and reporting them to daddy pharma is ethical. Perhaps surprisingly (to you, at least), I quite agree: it is lawful, and ethical -- ours are public statements, afterall.
Now, let us look at vfluence's purported "ethics" complaint: someone exposed its PUBLIC page, aggregating our public content. Apparently -- in riv's view, and that of vfluence -- this is some ill-defined form of unethical "hacking".
I gather what is good for the goose -- is NOT good for the gander (pun plainly intended), here riv.
Care to defend your entirely goofy position, now?
Namaste, just the same, riv. . . .
Condor any parent recognizes a toddler's argument. "But what about HIM?" Now go to your room.
Moje Cris Tabernac, C'dor.
Not hardly, riv -- in attempt ot be clever, you've undone yourself.
And it really bears repeating, here -- riv:
You just (unwittingly) confirmed that you believe there are two sets of rules, here. Really?
(i) One set, for pharma shills (a lower set of hurdles);
And (ii) another set (higher hurdles), for critics of pharma?
Priceless, son.
P r i c e l e s s.
Thank you for proving my point, and so succinctly.
Pax tecum, riv. And. . .
नमस्ते, to all of good will.
Toddlers? what like the Joseph Biederman drugging based on theory?
Jesus, we're all smarter than that train of thought.
The 'unraveled' exposing themselves via an anonymous name are the ones to mock.
I believe what you just did is called the strawho argument.
And a word of caution: all those font, style and language flips make you look poncy not educated.
Okay. Short form this time, riv:
It is not the strawmans' fallacy -- yours was. Logic and rhetoric, pal, boil it down to this:
You suggest that there are two sets of rules. I say there is only one set. Game. Set. Match.
Thanks for the advice, just the same -- but I tend to apply a discount such advice, when it comes from someone whose own statements make plain that any formal training in logical rhetoric has been long-forgotten.
Namaste
Nope. I suggested nothing of the sort. You're a reader og English as a second language?
"You suggest that there are two sets of rules. I say there is only one set. Game. Set. Match."
And the fact that you consider this a game says it all. That was evident from the begining, is, I think, a part of the job description for you people: facile, shallow, dishonest and into gamesmanship.
Namaste? What a travesty you stoop to pimp this culture in your facade.
Uh, okay -- be well, then riv. No point in responding to yours on the substance", as there is no "there" there to respond to, any longer, with you.
I am concerned that you really don't understand much about the things upon which you purport to write. [I did go review several of your other comments, in other threads.] But okay. Whatever.
Be well (or perhaps, be better).
नमस्ते, to all of good will.