Drug Companies Sick of Moore

For the CEOs of America's major drug companies, Michael Moore is a disease and they have the cure.

The top drug manufacturers have reportedly issued an edict to staffers to avoid giving fodder to the polarizing filmmaker as he embarks on his new documentary, Sicko, which delves into the dark side of America's health care system, including HMO practices, the power of the Food and Drug Administration, drug sales and availability, and the doctors caught in between.

The film isn't due for another two years, but, based on a track record that includes Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine and Roger and Me, the controversial filmmaker has already got the pharmaceutical giants reaching for their meds--panicking about what he might say.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Moore's sniffing around has so miffed the suits at America's top drug companies that all have sent out internal memos warning employees to watch out for Moore and his camera crew lest they accidentally paint their industry in a bad light.

"We ran a story in our story in our online newspaper saying Moore is embarking on a documentary--and if you see a scruffy guy in a baseball cap, you'll know who it is," Stephen Lederer, a spokesperson for Pfizer Global Research and Development, told the Times half-jokingly.

While some of the companies--including Astra Zeneca, Wyeth and U.K.-based firm GlaxoSmithKline--explicitly target Moore in their memos, others, such as Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, Teva, Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly & Co., Arvetis and Sanofi-Synthelabo, have sent out generalized alerts informing bewildered workers about what to do if ambushed by the press or muckraking filmmakers. (Call corporate communications stat!)

And given the beating the industry's taken over recent revelations that popular drugs like Vioxx, Celebrex and Aleve have been linked to increased heart disease, the drug makers are definitely starting to feel queasy about Sicko.

"Moore's past work has been marked by negativity, so we can only assume it won't be a fair and balanced portrayal," Rachel Bloom, executive communications director for Delaware-based Astra Zeneca, told the Times. "His movies resemble docudramas more than documentaries."

Such is Moore's mystique that he's beginning to resemble Elvis in more ways than girth. "We have six business centers nationwide, all of which report 'sightings'," Bloom told the Times. "Michael Moore is becoming an urban legend."

Rumor has it, says Bloom, that Moore's hired actors to dress up as drug company executives and offered $50,000 to doctors to install secret cameras in their offices to catch purported dirty deeds.

In a brief interview with the Times before Christmas, Moore insists that (1) he's not paying doctors because "so many doctors have offered to help, for free, in an effort to expose the system," and (2) the fact that he's famous has actually been a hindrance, not a help, in getting interviews with the bigwigs.

Moore said he first became inspired to tackle the health care industry head-on while doing a segment on his former Bravo TV show, The Awful Truth.

"Being screwed by your HMO and ill-served by pharmaceutical companies is the shared American experience," he told the Times. "The system, inferior to that of much poorer nations, benefits the few at the expense of the many."

Moore added that he's only just begun production on the movie, showing up at various pharmaceutical headquarters and other places, "and already people are freaky-deaky."

After he's done giving drug companies a taste of their own medicine, he'll again turn his focus on the Bush White House.

He plans to film next month's inauguration and then continue to gather footage of the administration's second term for a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11, titled Fahrenheit 9/11 1/2. That documentary is due out before the 2008 elections.