Dr. Phil is the latest celeb behind sneaky drug push

If you flip through the TV channels these days, you’re practically guaranteed to see “Dr. Phil” McGraw on a couple of them. He’s the tough-talking TV therapist who tackles everything from weight loss to couple’s counseling.

But now it looks like Dr. Phil has a whole new type of “doctoring” in mind.

He’s become the latest celebrity to sign on to a sleazy new type of ad campaign – one designed to steer millions of diabetics onto one of the riskiest drugs around.

Talk is cheap

First off, Dr. Phil is not a medical doctor.
He has a Ph.D. in psychology, which means he’s well-equipped to hand out advice to feuding siblings and couples whose marriages are on the rocks (and he sure hands out a lot of it).

But when Dr. Phil started cashing checks from AstraZeneca, he crossed a big red line – and may have put lots of diabetics right in harm’s way.

You see, Dr. Phil has diabetes and has been taking AstraZeneca’s risky med Bydureon (more on that in a second) for years.

And you can bet that once AstraZeneca learned that, it took them two seconds to make Dr. Phil the new face of their diabetes “disease awareness” campaign.

I’ve told you about these campaigns before – and how they’re a barely legal way for Big Pharma to get its drugs into your hands.

Basically, celebrities like Dr. Phil do interviews and appear in commercials talking about their disease (and often the drugs they use to treat it). They don’t even have to discuss any of the side effects or risks like in a regular drug ad – they’ll just tell you to visit a website or “talk to your doctor” instead.

And if your doctor ends up putting you on the same exact same med as your favorite celebrity, all the better.

That’s right – they’re trying to sell you medications the same way Nike sells sneakers to 12-year-olds. How insulting!

In fact, it was one of these “disease awareness” campaigns that let a pregnant Kim Kardashian send out a picture of her morning sickness drug to her 41 million followers on social media.

The only good news there is that I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind who’d take medical advice from Kim Kardashian.

Listen, I can’t say much for the little five-minute therapy sessions Dr. Phil gives out on TV – but the advice he’s dispensing to millions of diabetics is downright awful.

It could even be fatal.

You see, Bydureon is such a risky drug that even the FDA doesn’t recommend it as a “first line” treatment for diabetes. And when the FDA won’t get behind a med, that’s saying something.

Bydureon actually carries a black-box warning that it could give you thyroid tumors. And it’s been linked to everything from a fatal swelling of the pancreas to kidney disease that can be so severe you’d need a transplant.

And I’m guessing Dr. Phil isn’t going to give you one of his.

This is the new Big Pharma playbook. They use a person you trust to try to sell you a dangerous drug that you shouldn’t trust.

If you watch his show, you’ll know that Dr. Phil starts it off by saying “This is going to be a changing day in your life.”

But the easiest way to change (and even save) your life is to put Dr. Phil on mute – especially when he starts talking about diabetes meds.

Sources:

“Dr. Phil is not a medical doctor. But he is now a paid spokesperson for a diabetes drug.” Julia Belluz, February 26, 2016, Vox, vox.com