• by Christine Bittar , February 9, 2007

Watchdog consumer advocacy group Public Citizen is using YouTube for the first time to spread its concerns about some new brands of birth control pills.

The non-profit founded by Ralph Nader issued a press release on Tuesday calling for a ban of some of the new drugs and the same day put a video on YouTube featuring Public Citizen staffers, including the narrator named Kate, who is a researcher in its healthcare unit.

Until now, the group's forays into online media have consisted of e-alerts and Web-based petition drives to the Food & Drug Administration.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said the inspiration to use a "very honest effort" on YouTube came from wanting to target the majority of birth control pill users--most of whom are below age 45.

Within the first day, more than 1,000 people had viewed the YouTube video, and more than 100 used the accompanying email petition to the FDA calling for the ban of the third-generation pills in question, according to Wolfe.

The warning applies to the newest third-generation birth control pills, which contain a type of progestin called desogestrel. According to Wolfe's group, these pills "almost double the risk of life-threatening blood clots compared to older forms."

Specific brands include several from Barr Pharmaceuticals such as Duramed and Kariva, Watson Pharmaceutical's Reclipsen, and Ortho-Cept, from Johnson & Johnson/Ortho-McNeil.

Over the years, Wolfe and Public Citizen have masterfully cultivated media attention, so the question now is: How much more of an impact will YouTube make in bringing the group's concerns to the attention of laymen, and is Big Pharma in for bigger headaches given the expanded reach?

Yes and no, says one industry expert.

"He's an expert at guerrilla communications and has always been someone to watch, showing up at industry forums and making appearances at opportune moments, but I don't believe drug companies" are more concerned now because he's using YouTube, says Gil Bashe, head and evp of Makovsky & Co.'s healthcare practice and the past CEO of healthcare ad agency Common Health.

People in the industry "are respectful of him, and where he becomes valuable to society is when he sometimes gets people thinking, but [in this case] he's banking on the same response he has gotten from the ... GI generation and baby boomers," says Bashe.

"The younger generation doesn't believe in anything, so it's a double-edged sword. He might raise awareness, but he also has a point of view, a bias--and the generation he's reaching out to," says Bashe, won't suddenly become Wolfe converts, but they may still ask their doctors for a different type of pill.