Apparently the "New Merck" press relations folks are doing Whitehouse Station no favors, here -- in perhaps overly-zealous efforts to get stories on Arbiter 6 -HALTS spiked -- they are just pouring gasoline on the media's bonfires. There is much more in Mr. Huckman's salty and entertaining piece, so do go read it all -- but here's at least a taste:
. . . .However, earlier this week a Merck PR guy asked me, "Why are you making this such a big deal? It's a 200-patient study." When I tweeted it, one of my journalism pals on Twitter replied that they'd (I'm shielding their identity and gender) been told even worse on several occasions by various corp comm pitbulls:"Don't embarrass yourself," they reportedly said in a desperate last-ditch attempt to get a story spiked. I think if anyone ever said that to me I'd blow a gasket. . . .
Mike Huckman is also now reporting that the full article on the trial's end will appear in The New England Journal of Medicine, at 8 AM EST, Monday, November 16, 2009. We already know, via other published media reports, that it will be accompanied by at least one or two influential editorials -- inside the peer-reviewed journal (still officially nameless) printing it.
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