Paula Deen at Women's Conference 2010FLICKR, LIFESCRIPT
Earlier this month, celebrity chef Paula Deen announced that she has adult-onset or type 2 diabetes, then accepted a multimillion dollar deal to promote Novo Nordisk’s type 2 diabetes drug, Victoza. Before there was Paula Deen, there was figure skater Dorothy Hamill and actor Wilford Brimley. Indeed, there has been a long line of celebrity spokespeople for pharmaceutical companies, and their track record thus far has been quite poor in terms of honesty, openness, and promoting the public’s health.
Middle-aged arthritis sufferers flocked to their doctors demanding Vioxx for pain relief after watching Hamill figure skate in TV ads touting the drug shortly into the new millennium. We now have evidence that Vioxx caused as many as 140,000 extra cases of serious heart disease in ...
