Do you see a role for support staff from pump/meter companies here?

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Permalink Reply by Mark D on October 13, 2009 at 6:29pm

Nothing wrong with capitalism, and I hope you agree. Manufactures/marketers need to make money to stay in business, lets be honest.

If company clinicians disclose themselves as such, not sure how their more informed opinion could make the commetary here worse, really. In fact it would make it better and more informed on certain topics, even if slanted to the manufacturer's view.

If we knew the members that are manufacturer/Marketer reps, the reader could draw their own opinion on the feedback posted.

Your personal interview feedbback aside, not sure how "clinical" based input could hurt the discussion here

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Permalink Reply by rick phillips on October 10, 2009 at 7:34am

I am for it, but maybe with a twist. I feel that having a corner in our little community will have advantages. It is a tribute to the size of our little neighborhood, because we are growing and improving as a site. I suggest, this be allowed, provided the company financially support the community. I suggest that they be allowed to have a paid for corner, one that they monitor and support, but also one with fences around it so that they have to satay within.

For this privilege, I suggest they financially support our community with a donation of $15,000 - $20,000 per year. We saw that our fund raising fell short. I suggest we we require a contribution which would also be 510c3 eligible for not less than $15,000 per year. I suggest a 2 or 3 year contract, with the stipulation that other manufacturers will also pay, wiht the same restrictions.

rick phillips

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Permalink Reply by Jon Clarke on October 10, 2009 at 1:13pm

Not sure if I agree with this. If they want to donate, fine, but if it is required, I think that would sound like corporate sponsorship.

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Permalink Reply by Jenny on October 10, 2009 at 8:15am

The risk with allowing some company reps in promoting their companies products is that if you let one group in, it becomes hard to exclude the rest. That includes the sellers of sleazy "cures" and supplements. I don't believe you can have a policy that says, "We allow commercial posts from companies we personally like and bar those we don't."

Have you run this past your legal advisors? The nonprofit board I was associated with years ago was very shy of doing anything that might look like it was promoting any commercial product out of fear of jeapardizing its nonprofit status. That was what they'd been told to do by their legal advisor.

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Permalink Reply by tmana on October 10, 2009 at 12:01pm

There's a degree to which this bridge was burned when we partnered with J&J (what was it, a year ago?) -- and there are definitely legal issues to consider. One method of having a "bar" to keep out "sleazy 'cures' and supplements" would be to have a medical review board to OK who gets to have a "help corner" and who does not -- but I think that would expose us to even more legally liability, not just for keeping out the "cantaloupe seed extract cures T1" guys but also both short- and long-term suits regarding whether or not we let in, say, GSK reps talking about Avandia (to use an example that has been in the news fairly recently).

There's also a big difference between "promoting" and "supporting". Telling people they should buy my (fictional) Aura-meter Glucometer which determines your current blood glucose readings by your "aura" is one thing, and telling folk who have purchased this (fictional, fictionally-approved-by-FDA) meter that they "need to use it in private in an area away from fluroescent lights that might interfere with the reading" is another. The gray area is when a company is trying to drop support for an older product and force people into purchasing a newer product that requires a different line of consumables than the one the customer/patient is using (e.g. Freestyle Flash/Mini/Papillon versus Freestyle Lite glucometers).

There may be less liability if we limit this sort of customer service/gripeline to devices (meters, pumps, CGMs) and software rather than medications (insulin, oral medications, Byetta, Symlin, etc.) -- again, ask-the-legal-folk-first.

This all said and done, there already is a lot of give-and-take between corporate reps and patient-members in this community; sellers of snakeoil tend to be removed fairly quickly; and there is no way to completely ban everyone with a commercial interest in "the diabetes industry" from participation if we are open to all people with diabetes, who are family caregivers for people with diabetes, and/or who are otherwise "Touched By Diabetes". (Let's face it: if you work in the diabetes industry, you are by definition "touched by diabetes".)

What we need to do is recognize reality: we cannot keep these folk out. Our liability lies in being able to limit any legal liabilities DHF might incur due to their participation. We may be able to do this by something as simple as updating or amending our Terms of Service (requiring full disclosure at sign-up) and having staff members assigned to watch/moderate the known industry contacts.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Clarke on October 10, 2009 at 1:09pm

I think it would be fine as long as they identify themselves as an employee of their company. I don't think anyone should be excluded, as long as they don't cause problems for those who enjoy being here.

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Permalink Reply by rick phillips on October 10, 2009 at 7:47pm

I guess I do not see legality as an issue. This site is controlled by a volunteer board. Members of that board decide content. As a rule we have no more or less legal issue with disbanding a corporate sponsorship as with a flaming post. I sense that building a fence around the corporate corner is the right thing to do. But this site has value, and it is fair for the dhf, to be compensated. Here is m sense, of it. Content is regulated by the board, and as such the board can decide to allow corporate connections or not. Sometimes, what is confused is legality and politics. In a local 501 c 3 the issue is mostly local politics. If vendor A is allowed to advertise than how can we keep out vendor b. Well in this context we have very few of these political issues. If vendor c is angry, well ok, vendor c did not pass what ever standard is established. It is not an indictment of vendor c and really vendor c really has no political pressure to put on the board. What will vendor c start a competing board? Nothing is stopping them from doing so now.

My point is that local not for profits are very different that this not for profit. My sense is that if an attorney is consulted, they will say look there is no legal restriction in allowing some and not others. I am not a not for profit attorney, but my guess is that if consulted, we will not have an issue. As far as requiring a sponsorship fee for having a corporate corner, my sense is that a fee be it $1.00 or $100,000 is as good a filter as there is. Set the fee high enough and the corporate sponsors who can support the fee, will be the ones that are needed.

just my thoughts.

rick philips

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Permalink Reply by Vickie on October 11, 2009 at 7:42am

I agree there are pros and cons, but if we share our experiences with these companies it puts them in a better position to understand our true concerns and frustrations. Which can lead to better products and support. So I'm for it as long as it is very transparent. Vickie

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Permalink Reply by Anna Kingsbury on October 12, 2009 at 5:25am

I would think the person my be bias. I use this site to get "real person" experiences.

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Permalink Reply by 1HappyDiabetic on October 12, 2009 at 7:55am

This is an interesting question. As I look at TuDiabetes where does this fit?
It doesn't stand right out for me. I am sure there is a reason why the companies mentioned earlier don’t have open forums on their sites.

There would have to be something to completely separate this type of support. Do we really want to have selected clinical product support as a part of TuDiabetes? I think that should be for the companies to provide. Not to mention the legal issues if the information is taken the wrong way. I believe that is what the 1-800 numbers are for. I think there needs to be a line.

Anna said earlier in this post that she comes to TuDiabetes to get real person experiences, I do as well.

When I think of TuDiabetes I don’t think of company product support. Does it have a need? Sure it does, but where? Here? Maybe…

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