tw0122
4 years ago
The media is using a variety of tactics to restrict your access to the truth from websites like mine, including NewsGuard, a self-appointed internet watchdog that sells a browser plugin to rate websites on nine criteria of credibility and transparency. Before delving further into NewsGuard and its underlying agenda, it’s important to look at who funds it.
NewsGuard received much of its startup funds from Publicis Groupe, a giant global communications group with divisions that brand imaging, design of digital business platforms, media relations and health care.
Publicis Groupe’s health subsidiary, Publicis Health, names Lilly, Abbot, Roche, Amgen, Genentech, Celgene, Gilead, Biogen, Astra Zeneca, Sanofi, Bayer and other Big Pharma giants as clients, which gives you an idea of where its loyalties lie.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has also awarded Publicis Media a healthy piece of business, and the communications group responded by creating a custom “platformGSK” to run the drug giant’s media business.
GSK Adds $400 Million to $1.5 Billion Publicis Collaboration
In October 2018, following a five-month review, GSK sent its $1.5 billion media account to Publicis, which beat out other media agencies vying for the account, including Omnicom’s PHD and WPP’s Group M.1
According to FiercePharma, with the creation of the “platformGSK” model, the partnership gave “Publicis Media responsibility for all offline and digital paid media strategy and planning in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. In the U.S., that includes DTC [direct to consumer] pharma work.”2 Further, the news outlet reported:
“Publicis Groupe client lead Laurent Ezekiel said the agency is ‘excited to partner with them to establish a transformative client-agency relationship that will enable GSK to deliver on its ambition to become the best data-driven marketer in the industry.'”3
In January 2020, GSK awarded Publicis Media with even more business, handing over the former Pfizer Consumer Healthcare brands to Publicis. The move was decided without a review and will add Advil, Centrum, Caltrate and other Pfizer brands to platformGSK, worth an estimated $400 million. GSK holds a 68% stake in the joint venture.
“GSK has already announced its plans to spin off the joint venture within three years and list it as standalone company on the U.K. exchange as GSK Consumer Healthcare, leaving the pharma giant to focus on medicines and vaccines,” FiercePharma reported.4
Meanwhile, Publicis also handles other Big Pharma media accounts, including Novartis. In August 2019, Publicis created NovartisONE2 to manage the pharma giant’s global media account worth $600 million.5
Publicis Funds NewsGuard
While Publicis has been busy solidifying its strong ties with Big Pharma, it was also the lead investor among a group of 18 that helped make NewsGuard a reality.
As of March 2018, Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, the “media entrepreneurs” behind NewsGuard, had raised $6 million to launch the company, which was slated to “address the fake news crisis by hiring dozens of trained journalists as analysts to review the 7,500 news and information websites most accessed and shared in the United States … These sites account for 98% of the news articles read and shared in the English language online in the United States.”6
Once installed on your browser, NewsGuard assigns a color coded “Nutrition Label” to sites, rating them green or red in a process they said would be “completely transparent and accountable.”7 While first launching in the U.S., NewsGuard expanded internationally, launching in the U.K. in 2019 and rating more than 200 websites.
The startup created controversy in January 2019 after giving Mail Online — the most read news website in the U.K. — a failing grade, stating it failed to uphold even basic standards of accuracy or accountability.
Following backlash and apparent “discussions” with a Daily Mail executive, NewsGuard changed the rating to green, stating the site “generally maintains basic standards of accuracy and accountability” and said they were wrong.8
It was an early indication of what can go wrong when you trust a conflicted startup company to dictate what’s truth and what’s not. In January 2020, NewsGuard announced it would adopt a subscription service in the U.K. and will start charging for the service.9
At the same time, NewsGuard issued a notice to subscribers in the U.S. with an offer to sign up early for $1.95 a month to “help keep NewsGuard free for the hundreds of libraries and schools that use NewsGuard.”10
NewsGuard Is the Latest ‘Truth Arbiter’ to Deceive You
In other words, NewsGuard is setting itself up as the self-appointed global arbiter of what information is “trustworthy” — based on nine, self-described “credibility and transparency” factors — not only for information viewed for pay on private electronic devices, but also for information accessible for free in public libraries and schools.
Librarians will even provide instructions to patrons on how to install the NewsGuard extension on their personal computers, tablets and cell phones. If you install the plugin on your computer or cellphone, it will display its rating next to Google, Bing and other web searches as well as on articles displayed on social media. What are the nine criteria NewsGuard is using to “protect” you from fake news?
tw0122
5 years ago
Utah state employees will get some relief from insane prescription drug prices, with their insurer’s offer to fund their travel costs to Mexico and to throw in $500 cash, because it's still cheaper than buying the drugs in the US.
The unusual offer is being presented by PEHP, which insures 160,000 state employees and their family members. It includes a flight to San Diego, transportation to a "top notch" clinic in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, and an extra $500 per trip taken (up to $3,900 a year).
Although that seems like a lot of money coming out of PEHP's pocket, it's still apparently less than what it would pay for certain drugs in the US, shining a not-so-pleasant light on America's much scrutinized healthcare system.
“That money is pretty small in comparison to the difference between US prices and Mexico prices,” PEHP clinical operations director Travis Tolley told The Salt Lake Tribune.
The insurance provider came up with its "pharmacy tourism" plan after Utah legislation made it a requirement that state employees' insurance plans offer "savings rewards" or cash incentives to patients who choose cheaper medication providers.
The plan only applies to about 13 drugs, all of which show a huge price discrepancy when their cost in the US is compared with their cost in Mexico. A quick side-by-side glance at Avonex, used to treat Multiple Sclerosis, makes that clear. The drug is about $6,700 for a 28-day supply in the US, but $2,200 through PEHP's contracted clinic in Tijuana.
Other drugs in the program include ones used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, psoriasis, and prostate cancer.
The plan has been hailed by Utah Rep. Norm Thurston, a Republican who sponsored the legislation calling for incentives. “Why wouldn’t we pay $300 to go to San Diego, drive across to Mexico and save the system tens of thousands of dollars? If it can be done safely, we should be all over that," he said.
The incentive comes as Donald Trump's administration highlights the disparity between drugs in the US and other parts of the world. It has proposed a plan which would focus on the price of drugs under Medicare Part B, which covers cancer drugs and other medications given to patients in hospitals.
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