Meet “Ceyockey,” an Astrazeneca Pharma Wikipedian

Meet “Ceyockey,” an Astrazeneca Pharma Wikipedian

The most visible and most accessed example of crowd-sourced “creative commons” information is Wikipedia where “wikipedians” – i.e., people who write and edit the pages for Wikipedia – create drug information pages such as the one about rosuvastatin (“marketed by AstraZeneca as Crestor”).

“Nearly 75% of US physicians going online for professional purposes are visiting Wikipedia for medical information according to Manhattan Research,” says Eileen O'Brien, Director, Search & Innovation at Siren Interactive. “And 36% of US consumers searched for health info on Wikipedia according to Rodale's DTC Study. This is because Wikipedia dominates the search results for health. As Wikipedia plays such a key role, I think it's essential that pharma help to provide accurate information.” O'Brien made her comment in response to the this survey: Should Pharma Edit Wikipedia Articles? You can take the survey here -- afterward you will be able to see a summary of the results to date.

There may in fact be several “wikipedians” responsible for a single page of drug information on Wikipedia. The rosuvastatin page, for example, was edited by over 175 people as of 21 July 2012. The top three “editors” were:

1. “Ceyockey” (who made 35 edits),
2. “Jfdwolff” (who made 29 edits), and
3. “MALvis” (who made 23 edits).

The person who is number 4 on the list with 15 edits is "anon."

Who are these “wikipedians” and what credentials do they have as credible sources of drug information? We may never know who "anon" is, but we have some information about identified contributors.

“Jfdwolff” is a a "Dutch doctor living and working in the United Kingdom." “MALvis” is a US physician, "specializing in preventive, non-invasive and invasive cardiology and internal medicine in San Antonio." Both seem to be well-qualified to write about rosuvastatin, but their Wikipedia profiles tell us nothing about possible conflicts of interest (COI).

“Ceyockey,”  however, does have a COI. He is Courtland Yockey, an “informatics scientist” who lives in Delaware and works for a “top-10 multi-national pharmaceutical company,” according to his profile on Wikipedia.

Yockey has nothing to hide. You can find his Wikipedia profile here,  his LinkedIn page here, his Twitter account  here, and his Facebook page here.

According to his LinkedIn page, the pharmaceutical company that Yockey works for is Astrazeneca, which markets rosuvastatin as CRESTOR.

“I believe that my editing of Wikipedia is generally beneficial,” says Yockey in his Wikipedia profile, “and I have no regrets or concerns about anything that I have or will create or revise here, which is why I am willing to provide my real name.”

Whether or not it is “beneficial” for individual pharma company employees such as Yockey to be editing Wikipedia information about their own company’s products is difficult to know for certain. Transparency, however, is crucial for judging credibility of drug information on Wikipedia. Yockey addressed transparency head on in a straight-forward fashion, although he failed to state unambiguously  in his Wikipedia profile that he works for “Astrazeneca.”

Did Astrazeneca empower Yockey or give him permission to edit Wikipedia pages about AZ drugs? That is, is Yockey an "official" Wikipedia spokesperson appointed by Astrazeneca to perform all Wikipedia article edits on behalf of the company? I doubt it. Yockey's profile specifies that he works on edits from home.

Official pharma employee Wikipedia editors and related issues were discussed during a recent Pharma Marketing Talk podcast titled “Pharma Wikipedians: The Pros and Cons of Pharma Employees Editing Wikipedia Articles” (listen here).

It's possible to determine the exact edits Yockey has made to the Wikipedia rosuvastatin page, but I do not have the time or resources to find that needle in a haystack of thousands of edits Yockey has made to Wikipedia articles over the years. Wikipedia is not user-friendly enough to allow ordinary citizens to ferret out that kind of information, IMHO. For all I know, Yockey could have written or edited the section titled "Debate and criticisms."

Another problem with Wikipedia drug information pages is that they are not consumer-friendly -- i.e., not written at a level that is understandable by non-physicians. The Wikipedia rosuvastatin page, for example, says "as with all statins, there is a concern of rhabdomyolysis, a severe undesired side effect." Unfortunately, the article does not explain what rhabdomyolysis is in layperson terms.

Here Come the Pharma Wikipedians!

Here Come the Pharma Wikipedians!

Should pharmaceutical companies appoint employees as Wikipedia "spokespeople" to perform all edits to Wikipedia articles on behalf of the company? That is the opinion of Bertalan Meskó, MD, founder and managing director of Webicina.com, who invited pharmaceutical companies to "employ a Wikipedia editor if you want to make sure only evidence-based information is included in entries about your own products" (find his letter here).

Recall that PhRMA -- in comments submitted to the FDA (see "Accountability for Pharma Content on Social Media Sites") -- suggested that manufacturers would welcome correcting misinformation about their products posted to sites like Wikipedia if these corrections were not subject to FDA regulation.

"FDA," said PhRMA, "should confirm formally that, while it is not possible for manufacturers to monitor or correct all inaccurate information about their products on the Internet, such corrections by manufacturers in response to inaccurate postings will not be considered promotional labeling. FDA's adoption of such a policy would thereby allow manufacturers to correct inaccurate information about their medicines on the Internet or social media (e.g., Wikipedia, Sidewiki, blogs, or other websites) if they should become aware of such information."

PODCAST
Pharma does not have a stellar record when it comes to editing Wikipedia articles. See, for example, "Simply Irresistible: Abbott Tampering with Wikipedia Entries" and "Web 2.0 Pharma Marketing Tricks for Dummies." So it's no surprise that this raises a number of interesting issues that were hotly debated during a recent #hcsmeu Twitter chat. That discussion will be continued in a Pharma Marketing Talk podcast on Tuesday, July 17, 2012. You are invited to listen or call in with your opinions. For more information, go here.

SURVEY
Meanwhile, I invite you to respond to the short survey below, which asks your opinion regarding the issues. Specifically, the survey asks whether or not you agree to the following statements:

• Pharma should NOT correct Wikipedia "misinformation" under any circumstances.
• Pharma should appoint employees or hire outside "Wikipedians" (ie, trained specialists) to edit "misinformation" on Wikipedia.
• When pharmaceutical company employees or agents correct "misinformation" on Wikipedia, they must reveal their ties to the company.
• When pharma corrects Wikipedia "misinformation" about Rx products, FDA should NOT consider this promotional labeling subject to regulation.
• If pharma edits Rx information on Wikipedia and this information is later re-edited by others, pharma should not be held responsible for any resulting misinformation.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Pharma Urged to Employ Wikipedia Editors: Ain't Goin' to Happen

Pharma Urged to Employ Wikipedia Editors: Ain't Goin' to Happen

My friend, Dr. Bertalan Meskó (@Berci) writes (here):

Dear Pharma Companies,

The place of Wikipedia in the dissemination of medical information online is indisputable now. If you want your customers to access information about your products from the quality perspective and in the simplest way, you have to deal with using Wikipedia.

Based on the pretty negative past encounters between pharma employees and Wikipedia editors (pharma employees trying to edit entries about their own products in a quite non-neutral way), we advise you to employ a Wikipedia editor if you want to make sure only evidence-based information is included in entries about your own products. Appointing someone from within your company as a “spokesperson” in Wikipedia who would perform all edits on behalf of the company is an excellent way to update those entries.

For more details, please see our open access social media guide [see my review here].

But basically, we, Wikipedians, are more than open to starting a discussion about this with you.

I’m looking forward to working together.

Dr. Bertalan Mesko
Webicina.com

I respect Berci and agree that pharmaceutical companies should employ full-time resources to monitor social media sites like Wikipedia and submit what they consider "corrective" information about products. But, IMHO, it ain't goin' to happen!

Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) responded to Berci via Twitter: "We look for patient safety issues & react. Its important to stick to Wikipedia policies too, so all transparent." But when asked by Berci if BI had posted anything online about this, BI responded "No at this point in time we have not....yet," seemingly leaving the door open.

But I am sure that no pharma company will ever -- in this economy -- hire someone just to monitor Wikipedia and write Wikipedia entries.

But why stop at Wikipedia? There's are other social media platforms that also need dedicated resources -- such as Twitter, Facebook, numerous patient discussion boards, and now Pinterest.

Many brand managers have probably hired outside agencies to monitor what people are saying about brands on social media sites, but the goal is not to issue "corrective information." It's more a matter of market research and measuring share of voice, that sort of thing (maybe also actively monitoring for safety issues as BI mentioned). These agents are temporary help and the companies will never hire anyone to do this full-time in-house. In fact, many social media pioneers within pharma companies have "moved on" (ie, lost their jobs); see, for example, "Is There an Upward Career Path Within Pharma for Social Media Pioneers?"