Cholesterol

Jarvik is perhaps best known to the public for his role in helping to develop the Jarvik-7 artificial heart.

The subpoena arose out of a lawsuit in which the labor unions sued Pfizer, claiming their health benefit programs paid for Lipitor prescriptions that were written for patients who should not have received them.

Pfizer claims the subpoena is baseless.

The litigation is another example in a series of unrelated legal maneuvers in which lawyers have attempted to hold celebrities accountable for the things they say in ads.

The Federal Trade Commission is currently reviewing celebrity ad endorsements to see whether stars need to make greater disclosures regarding what they say about products (Brandweek, April 2).

That review was spurred in part by various pharma marketers' histories of using celebs to talk about drugs on TV talk shows without disclosing that they were paid to do so.

And the FTC lost a case a few years ago against baseball player Steve Garvey, who had hawked the fraudulent Enforma weight-loss system in late-night infomercials.

The Lipitor suit hangs on the arcane language that details the segments of the population for which the Food and Drug Administration approved Lipitor.

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