Roseanne Barr made some racist remarks on Twitter and had her show cancelled as a result. Her excuse; “Ambien tweeting”.
Although her tweets have been deleted from her Twitter account, they live on the web forever.
With these two tweets, Roseanne Barr has created a cloud of doubt about a prescription drug that many take to help them sleep faster and longer. By blaming a medication for her poor behaviour, she is trying to turn this into a ‘big bad pharma’ issue to benefit her public perception.
Everybody knows that Roseanne is not a physician or a pharmacist, but as a public figure, many will hear her comments and trust her, regardless of her lack of expertise in the matter or inaccuracy of her statements.
I applaud Sanofi US for their quick, clever and confident response on Twitter;
Their response was courteous yet to-the-point. Racism is not a side effect of a Sanofi medication. End of discussion!
Pharma is so often made to feel like an evil machine, that this industry often just stays quiet in the face of unfair criticism, for fear of being criticized even more for not just rolling over and accepting the original criticism. I’m so glad that Sanofi US spoke up and let its voice be heard.
Now I’m sure that I will be criticized for standing up for Sanofi US. Take a look at the list of adverse effects collected by Iodine.com. This list was created from a staggering 1,158 clinical trials. That’s not peanuts! Having such a huge number of clinical trials to back up a list of side effects means that the list will be that much more complete and accurate.
Iodine.com lists the Ambien adverse effects as follows, in order of most frequent to least frequent, as collected from 1,158 clinical trials;
- drowsiness, headache, dizziness, allergic reactions, sinus infection, dry mouth, back pain, lack of energy, drugged feeling, diarrhea, sore throat, flu-like symptoms, racing heart, lightheadedness, depression, abdominal pain, constipation, rash.
There is not one mention of racism or other lewd behaviour listed as a side effect.
To blame a medication for being a racist, and shoving that particular pharma company under the bus …. come on, Roseanne! That’s not fair and it’s not accurate, and you know it!