Marc Iskowitz interviews CSL comms/brand chief Anthony Farina about solidifying the Aussie biotech’s purpose en route to its ranking as fastest-growing brand. Lecia Bushak reports on a bipartisan bill to fund community health, amid fears of a government shutdown. And Bruce Willis’ dementia tops our Trends segment, along with TikTok’s mouth-tapers and one poker player’s sickening bluff. Music by Sixème Son.
Note: The MM+M Podcast uses speech-recognition software to generate transcripts, which may contain errors. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast.
Hey, this is Marc
One of the recurring themes on this podcast is what I would describe as the ups-and-downs of pharma’s brand reputation.
Remember how the pandemic proved to be a boon to the corporate reputations of drugmakers?
Well, the “COVID halo” – if you could call it that – didn’t last long.
Last week’s interview with Moderna’s chief brand officer Kate Cronin was a good reminder of the ephemeral nature of those levels. In an interview with my colleague Jack O’Brien, Cronin said the fuzzy feelings seemed to have largely worn off by the time she joined the biotech in mid-2021.
And a study earlier this year noted a 2% decline in brand value across the industry.
But the mercury swings both ways on this. And – as proof – we’re bringing you another interview with a pharma brand chief.
Anthony Farina is chief communications and brand officer over at Australian biotech CSL.
CSL was ranked fastest-growing pharma brand, despite the natural decline of pharma following the pandemic.
This week on the podcast, Anthony takes us inside CSL’s reputation-management function as we explore the biotech’s brand story and get his take on some of the biggest risks to corporate reputation, as well as his tips for pharma communicators.
And Lecia’s here with a health policy update; hey, Lecia!
Hey Marc, today I’ll discuss a new piece of legislation that would invest in primary health care that was introduced in the Senate HELP committee last week… even as the government heads toward a shutdown.
And Jack, what’s on tap for this week’s Trends segment…
This week, we’re discussing the latest update on Bruce Willis’ dementia, the dangers of TikTok’s mouth taping trend and a poker player who lied about having terminal cancer to raise money to compete at the World Series of Poker.
Hey,
this is marcuskowitz editor at large from Eminem and I’m very pleased to be joined here by Anthony Farina whose Chief Communications in brand officer for CSL bearing Anthony leads the Strategic Communications brand and reputation management function there Anthony. Welcome to the M&M podcast. Mark is a pleasure. Thanks for having me on
today.
Absolutely. So I wanted to start off by asking you this is a time when we’re seeing the current macroeconomic headwinds and the natural Decline and the strength of Pharma following the pandemic as such we’re seeing widespread declines and brand value across the industry. But CSL was named the fastest growing brand by brand value in a recent ranking. So hoping you can tell us about the brand Value Story. How did you solidify the brand purpose?
Sure. Well, it didn’t happen overnight. Let’s put it this way. We started this back in 2014 when there was no Global Communications brand function for CSL display it being one of the largest bi
X in the world and so we have this opportunity to build it from the ground up and these opportunities only come around a handful of times. And so we wanted to be a couple things one. We wanted to be authentic.
Really be true to our ourselves and our patients. We didn’t want to be something that you know, we just wear it. Secondly we wanted to be focused and so CSL has a free business units one is CSL bearing focused around rare and serious diseases CSL Securus is one of the largest providers of flu vaccines in the world with a differentiated product portfolio that really where Innovations rewarded and now we have cslv for amongst the leaders in Nephrology and and iron as as well. And so we really want to be focused on those three areas as well. And so we built this thing from the ground up. We wanted to be a publishing Powerhouse, especially with the number of journalists or the dwindling number of journalists around the world over the last 10 years. And so we really focus more on the owns some paid, but earn was probably more of
A sort of secondary for us and then we wanted to be digitally Centric and now I think a lot of large biopharma companies have struggled in the past of trying to how do you work in your digital capabilities when they’ve been operating the traditional way and so we really had the benefit of starting something from the ground up and really look at it in a what I would say a different way than maybe traditional communication and marketing groups have have sort of been organized over the years and you know, look no one’s declaring Victory. But you know, it’s the work has paid off over the years very steady drum beat growth growth growth and it’s very much aligned with our approach it CSL where we really try to drive sustainable growth. We’re not in it for the the short term. There’s a company that’s been around for well over a hundred years and we’re always about that sustainability that sust
Mobile growth going forward and I think the way we have developed our brand over that time really represents that and and we were just delighted to be recognized with the fastest growing brands in by a farm in the last 12 months. And there’s a lot of reasons for that and I’m certain I’m sure we’ll get into that in a little bit Mark, but the other thing is we also have seen that brand growth of 80% since 2020 as well. And so again, it’s not a quick hit a snapshot or so. And so, you know, we’re we’re really the trajectory is going off very very nicely.
Yeah. I mean you were recognized for the immunoglobulin portfolio the nearly 12 billion dollar acquisition of I for Pharma as you mentioned and the launch of himgenics Hemophilia be gene therapy. So some really good talking points there and you mentioned a number of things that you focused on the authenticity, you know, those three business units and kind of like uniting them earned versus paid being digitally Centric
We’ll just send you say that you spent the most time doing in terms of that, you know refining and honing of the
brand Focus sure is it’s really is to get everyone focused on the brands. And so when you have a team global team people are you know, trying to provide support to the business trying to support, you know other initiatives. It’s really important to continue to drive the brand for the company in sometimes you feel like you’re Don Quixote, you know, Finding windmills, especially since we’re still an embryonic Brands if we really think about it when we introduced our first brand positioning eight years ago or so and so pretty much school a lot of work, but it’s again driving it and reminding the team my reminding our 32,000 employees around the importance of the brand is is as well. So we’ve made a lot of progress but we still have a long ways to go for sure and I’m really really delighted.
now that we did our rebrands about a year ago or or so, I really do believe The Best Is Yet To Come especially coming together as one one CSL brand that we’re really trying to drive and and
the the business units are just performing so well and that’s always helpful for Our Brands, you know, sometimes get caught up into you know, the, you know, sort of the conceptual kind of things but when a company’s performing so the brands and you know, it’s really really we’re very fortunate to work and support a company that’s really delivering on his promise really of of performance makes everything else really fall into place very nicely.
Sure. Yeah, and you know, you mentioned that the Rebrand that took place about a year ago where you unified the business units that was last August I believe and
but
you know Brands reputation is a tricky thing, you know, just look at what happened during the pandemic where a Pharma was really really recognized as the way out of the pandemic and and turns out the vaccines, you know kind of delivering it in that in that regard, but how quickly how fickle reputation has proved in the month since and we know that even even when Brands take a deliberate attempt at building their brand value and their Brand Story things can go awry. So what do you think is the biggest risk these days to Brand reputation and brand value
sure. So, you know as we all know the brand is the promise and how you live up to that promise is how the reputation is forms and and those kind of things, you know, a couple challenges that we live. We live in a sound bite world.
Where Communications is sometimes happens in 140 characters or less?
And so the volatility and the quickness and the agility and the speed of information is so important and so we really need to be able to manage our reputation based on the speed based on the agility and those kind of things and you know, there’s always a time it just you know, when you have a company a global company, there’s always ups and downs those kind of things and it always goes back to driving the brand because the reputation will go up and down you’ll have a bad news story. Something will happen will be a cycle some kind of things going on around the world. There’s a big world 24/7. We’re living in it in it now, but the best thing about managing to brands or managing reputation is investing back into the brand that that’s putting that Equity back in the bank if you will because
Things happen and we’re living in this 24/7 140 character or less world and I’m just really delighted that at CSL. We we are mindful of that. In fact, we have a reputation a body of work that we have going on right now. It would have been really easy for us to say wow. We were just named fastest growing brands in by a farm and not do anything about it and we’re actually out there doing a really like a two three year body of work that we just started around our reputation and really excited to see the results of that.
Pretty well, we’ll talk about that in a bit. I also wanted to get into some of your your recommendations your tips for other marketers who looking across the industry have similar roles you’re accountable obviously for building protecting and defending csl’s brand and reputation with key stakeholders and influencers. What kind of tips do you have for your counterparts at other companies?
Sure, so a couple things one you’re only as good as your people.
And you know when we started this thing a couple years ago, there was a handful of people in Australia. They weren’t even a team a handful of people in the US and a handful of people in Europe. And so what we were able to do is really build what I would say a very diverse team and so I think sometimes in biopharma teens get caught up. Let’s say well you need to have by a farm experience to work in this in this area. And so, you know, maybe maybe we’ve sort of have challenged that sort of mindset and so we have people from different Industries consumer Food Industries. We have a number of former journalists as as well Industrials as well. Certainly, we have a number of people with biopharm experience too, but I think that diversity really brings a lot different perspectives different ideas. We always talk about no ideas a bad one. You know, we’ll try I think we’re Progressive. We’ll try
Some things and if it’s not working we we stop it and move on to something else. And so we really challenged the team the really, you know, bring the best sells, you know, 24/7 and and really lean in to be a part of it because we’re still embryonic and we’re still growing as it as a team, but that diversity of talent is has been really critical for us. The other is what I mentioned a little bit earlier.
Now be authentic if you’re making widgets, then be the best widget maker you are and position that company that way I’ve seen over the last probably probably like the last five or six years two areas where you just sort of shake your head sometimes one is around.
Purpose and in the biopharma industry. We are a purpose industry. There’s no doubt about it. There’s no question. But then when you look around you really start to say really is that really are you being true to yourself? Are you being authentic and purposeful and those kind of things and you see some other campaigns just just shake your head. Sometimes the other I would say is ESG and sustainability.
For what decades a lot of companies have you know really been driving sustainability and I think in biopharma the questions around in from investors and analysts asking around, you know, what are you doing ESG and sustainability wise as sort of caused this when I would say this scurrying around of making commitments and you saw this probably a couple years ago where everyone just went out and did a you know, 2050 carbon neutral and all those kind of things. Well, I don’t know who’s gonna be around in 2050. I’m not so sure I will be but
It it’s really important that again be authentic. And so we of course put together our sustainability strategy and we made our commitments but we made the commitments not just a Scurry and do it and check the box. It’s aligned with our business strategy, which is very unusual. We’ve made environmental Target commitments aligned with our 2030 business strategy to 2030. And so, you know, I think it’s those kind of things where take a step back be thoughtful in what you’re doing and don’t just rush the judgment and sort of be out there. You kind of see that
Over time but those are the two areas that I would sort of say interesting over the last five years or so sure
and and the diversity of talent, you know is a great one. Obviously you are responsible for about 70 staffers around the world and you created csl’s first Global Communications and brand functions. So, you know interesting to hear you talk about the importance of diverse team and being very deliberate and staying true to the brand authenticity with the ESG goals there as well CSL has it to roots in Australia, right Australian Pharma company or founded on plasma derived therapy built up the biotech platform and hemgenics was your first gene therapy approval last year as we mentioned. It’s a sign of strength in your R&D the pricing conversation being a delicate one though. Can you talk about you know, how you put together? You’re kind of Top Line messaging strategy around mgenics pricing because at three and a half million dollars, it was was the
I think Remains the most expensive drug in the world.
Yeah, sure. So first and foremost, you know, this is just great news for patients with hemophilia be transformational.
Innovative and and we’re leader in this space and bleeding disorders immune deficiencies and those kind of things. So we were absolutely delighted to serve patients with this really transformational therapy. And you know, who would have thought little CSL little CSL would bring a therapy like this to to the world and so I know the listeners here really understand that gene therapy represents really a relatively new way to treat patients with genetic diseases. It’s creating paradigm shift in payment. And so what him Jennings does is it offers the potential of savings over time. When you think about it compared to the current cost of treating patients and that’s been confirmed by icer as well. And so the payer Community has responded very positively to the value proposition offered by and genics.
And we’ve seen that reflected in the policies that have been written. For example, a large majority of pairs of covering a large majority of the US population have established medical policies covering hymgenics. And so their early days were delighted with the initial patients have been dosed payer Community has been very receptive. But going back to your point mark around the pricing messaging.
Like I said a little bit early we live in a sound bite world and you know the communications of 140 characters or less. That’s the reality of the world. So what we learned was it’s so important to have early and often engagement with various stakeholders, whether that’s patient groups patient advocacy groups hcps payers and have those meaningful conversations and we’re really pleased with how things are progressing going forward and again transformational and you know, who would have thought good old CSL with a brought such a such a transformational therapy to the world. But you know, when you look at our pipeline, we have a number of other exciting opportunities. Our pipeline is never been more robust. And if if you’re listeners pay attention to us over the next year or so, there’s some really really exciting projects that we have coming out at
Late stages
yes, it’s an impressive to hear and as you mentioned the price tag while it’s steep up front. If it does prevent patients from having to dish out over time for chronic therapy, you know that it actually becomes reasonable and some of the pair contacts and then the financial analysts that I read felt that the price was reasonable. And as you mentioned icer the frequently cited figure that they came out with those was slightly slightly lower but it’s incrementaly higher the final price tag, but Wall Street analyst seemed to seem to feel as well Justified given everything you said so, you know, if I may add one other thing that I think you know from from our Vantage Point makes CSL unique is the quality of staying in your lane. I mean remember there was when we wrote about my colleague interviewed former CEO Paul Perot several years ago. He talked about another one of the company’s pipeline products that was developed under its own roof.
An oncology product and it was sold off the Janssen and Paul’s comment at the time was we’re not an oncology company, you know, we wouldn’t have been a good parent for that. So staying in your lane, you know, which which is a your roots as a blood plasma company and now coming out with a gene therapy for hemophilia certainly seems to make sense.
Yeah, and it’s, you know, really understanding your strengths understanding who you are be comfortable in your own skin. Now look right now we have a number of medicines that we’re working on that are not necessarily plasma derived and so plasma will always be important for us but there’s so many recombinants that we’re looking at now. We like to think about our approach to R&D is disrupting ourselves. And so I’ll give you an example on right now. Is that the clear market leader for us there and now we have him genics and so we’re really disrupting ourselves. We have some terrific flu.
Vaccines but we’re differentiating and providing more cell-based there. That’s more sustainable and has you know better results there is as well. So, you know the be a leader you have to behave like one and we’ve been doing this for a long time. We’re very familiar with it. And like I said wait till you see what else is coming out in the in the pipelines very very exciting. It’s hard not to get excited. Really.
It sounds like a very Jack Welch type of quality, you know, you can’t cannibalize your own products for the sake of innovation, you know,
exactly look at the end of the day. It’s all about bettering patients. We have to all remember this it’s all about improving the quality of lives for our patients and in many instances saving their lives because many medicines we have are not discretionary their life saving medicines and right and so, you know when you can improve patients lives, that’s what we’re all in this for.
Sure. How is the CEO transition or talking about the transition from Paul Perot over to Paul McKenzie, Mr. McKenzie. Obviously took over what this past March it was a Paul to Paul transition to talk about that a little bit
sure, you know look, you know you do these these things after a while you go through a number of CEO Transitions and you know, I’ve been involved with some that really didn’t transition very well. I can tell you this one. I’ve been in this business for 35 years. This is without the doubt those seamless CEO transition to be involved with I think it’s was helpful that Paul Mckenzie was with see CSL for four years or so and and really understands the business because the business we’re in very complex when you start working in the plasma centers. There’s a long lead time for many of our products nine months to 12 months or so, and I can tell you that the Handover has just been wonderful both.
Terrific leaders different different styles different ways funny little story there. First time. I met Paul Mckenzie was four years ago when he joined CSL and
he and I were looking at each other and he said you look familiar said you look familiar too started talking and lo and behold 10 years earlier. We’re a refereeing swim meets at National levels in Atlanta, Georgia, Greensboro, North Carolina Indianapolis where we are actually refereeing meets together. So we go way back great guy loves really has a lot of passion and very very much a great leader.
Great. Great. I know you spent 13 years at Dupont as well as their Chief public affairs and Communications officer. So you you go back and the chemical industry as well before you join CSL. So I’m sure you know a lot of people from both roles, but the, you know want to leave our listeners with some future looking commentary, you know, the brand Finance report was just one of the reputation indicators and they’ve had a lot of Success Through the past year, but talk about what’s next for on the reputation front. You know, you mentioned you’ve got some things
What kind of marketing and Communications campaigns they have planned for the next six to 12 months?
Sure. So, you know, I think a lot of people right now are really excited around Ai and really to get an understanding of how that all sort of works there. We now have the V4 business unit. Well integrated into the company now we did the rebranding last year as well. So like the fundamentals are all in place there for us to really take off going out there and like I mentioned a little bit earlier Mark, we now have a program going out there where we’ll really be engaging with stakeholders to see how our reputation and not only our strength but also opportunities for us to kind of close the gap.
Where we have our brand positioning out there, but how are we playing? How are we being seen by the multiple stakeholders going going out there? So we have a program in place over the next two to three years that we’re really going to be honing in on that. The other thing I would say too is we’re really looking at strategic Partnerships more so going forward than maybe in the past is as well and there’s a lot of benefit of that from a brand standpoint. So obviously a win-win the halo effect for both sides. And so we need to be really thoughtful in who we partner with and in those kind of things, but I think you’ll see more
Initiatives like that versus just CSL, you know carrying all the water itself and and that also carries over into our R&D. We’ll do more Partnerships that way in those kind of things. But I think you also see that over on the brand. So, you know, we’re always talking we’re always listening and so stay tuned War forum and maybe some upcoming Partnerships.
Alright, so I’m talking about Business Development Area kind of like m&a type of Partnerships or sort of more on the brand side
more. Well, actually both actually both. So, you know, we spend well over a billion in R&D US every year and you really want to use those dollars wisely. And so we’re growing an incredible rate, but
And the world has movement so quickly and so sometimes it makes sense to partner with others to be able to bring the the medicine to marker in a more accelerated way and then on the brand side, you know, I I have been receiving a lot of calls a lot of interest over the last year or so as we’ve done the rebranding and people are finally noticing CSL. And so we’re really starting to talk with folks more so than maybe in the past and you know, a lot of people say well, you know, you’ve been around for a hundred years I come I haven’t heard about you and it’s really two-fold one is we trade on Australian stock exchange, right? So that’s halfway around the world. And so we we are we are the largest biotech company in Australia. We are the largest Healthcare Company, you know, Australia number three, I think overall, you know, Australia the second is our largest business is focus and rare.
Serious diseases like immune deficiencies and bleeding disorders. And so we’re not we don’t have a large group of patients. It’s more focused there. But now that we’ve done the rebranding and now that we have, you know, really tried to be much more I would say thoughtful and really driving out there you start in the see the fruits of our labor that we started eight years ago, especially in the last three or four years
or so. It’s interesting hemophilia strikes only about 30 to 30 30,000 males. For instance. I remember reading right and you know, women are affected to a lesser degree. So you’re talking about smaller patient populations. Obviously not mass Market, you know, patient populations that’s contributes to the smaller kind of lesser known aspect of the company.
I’ll tell you one thing we do know is the brand loyalty is very high for us. And and here’s one of the reasons why is when you have a
Disease meant it takes six seven eight years, maybe nine 10 years to be accurately diagnosed. And so what happens is
people feel empowered like they’re not feeling well and so they’ll go online and and really really look for content and as we know there’s good content and not so good content out there. And so one of the things when we started this early on when we did our research with patients and patient groups is they were really looking for a credible organization to provide content on the diseases how to live a full life and those kind of things one of the things we saw there was a gap there and so every day we published a fresh piece of content that’s leverage across our channels every day to help people live a more meaningful life and it’s not always content about us, but it’s from us as a leader in this space and I’ll give you a great example. We now have over 500,000 followers on Facebook after just four years and so content is still King. I don’t care what anybody says we strive to be a publishing Powerhouse and be digitally Centric and so it’s really
Off
great Yeah, you mentioned that publishing was one of your main goals and reassuring to hear your comments about the value of content great. Well Anthony, I’m sure our listeners are going to really enjoy hearing hearing you and hearing your Insider take on the Rebrand and congrats on all the success you’ve had with the brand value increase. Thank you again for joining us Mark. Thanks for having me real pleasure and look forward
to the next time.
Health policy update with Lecia Bushak.
The U.S. government is headed toward a shutdown within days, leaving various public health programs up in the air when it comes to funding.
Congress isn’t on the path of finding a solution anytime soon, as Democrats in the Senate are planning to vote on a bipartisan stopgap funding bill – while Republicans in the House push four bills with conservative goals forward, with no consensus to avoid the shutdown.
Still, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions or HELP committee last week passed a bipartisan bill that tries to address at least one of those health funding cliffs – the federal fund for community health centers.
Led by Senators Bernie Sanders and Roger Marshall, the bill would reauthorize the Community Health Center Fund and invest $26 billion into primary health care and the workforce shortage. In particular, it would provide $5.8 billion to community health centers and $3 billion for them to expand dental and mental health care services.
In a statement, Sanders referred to the QUOTE “broken” health care system in the U.S. and that the bill was a lot more modest than what he had hoped for. Still, he argued that the legislation will save substantial sums of money.
SANDERS: Investing in primary healthcare will keep people healthier and out of hospitals. Investing in community health centers will keep people out of emergency rooms, which cost 10 times more than going into a community health center.
But the bill has drawn opposition from Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who raised concerns about how the legislation would be paid for. Some hospital groups also argued that some hospital cuts in the bill – such as eliminating facility fees for telehealth – would negatively impact them.
Still, Sanders pressed that he would work with QUOTE “Senate leadership in the coming weeks to move this bill forward and ensure that millions more Americans can get the healthcare they deserve.” I’m Lecia Bushak, Senior Reporter at MM+M.
And this is the part of the broadcast when we welcome Jack O’Brien to tell us what’s trending on healthcare social media.
Hey Marc, we had a few stories that just missed the cut this week.
Those include Sen. John Fetterman fighting back tears in an interview while discussing the ridicule he endured following a stroke last year; Italian acting icon Sophia Loren undergoing emergency surgery over the weekend after suffering several fractures in a fall at her home; and Politico publishing a five-part series detailing the rise of the anti-vax movement in the U.S.
However, we begin this episode with Emma Heming Willis’ interview on the Today Show Monday morning, where she said it’s “hard to know” if Bruce Willis is aware of his dementia.
Emma spoke with host Hoda Kotb about her journey as a caregiver for Bruce since he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which the family made public earlier this year.
“Dementia is hard,” Heming Willis said. “It’s hard on the person diagnosed, it’s also hard on the family. And that is no different for Bruce, or myself, or our girls. When they say this is a family disease, it really is.”
She added that it is unclear if her husband is aware of his condition, saying, “It’s hard to know.”
As listeners may recall, Willis was diagnosed with aphasia in the spring of 2022 before his condition progressed to FTD, the most common form of dementia for people under the age of 60 and affects between 50,000 to 60,000 people in the U.S.
It often takes an average of just over three-and-a-half years to obtain an FTD diagnosis following the first symptoms.
These signs of the disorder include memory loss but also encompass changes to a patient’s personality, behavior, language, ability to live independently and movement due to the parts of the brain affected by FTD. There is no cure or standard of care for the condition, with most patients requiring around-the-clock care from skilled healthcare professionals.
Mark. I want to throw it over to you because we were talking offline about just how dire this condition is and obviously how challenging it is. And that was what Emma Willis was highlighting in her interview on the caregivers, too. They’re they’re not lost in this just as much as the patients are the focus.
Yeah, absolutely. I was going to bring up that point Jack that you know, that’s the off to overlooked impact on the caregivers for disease for which you know, Bruce Willis has seemingly seemingly done just as much for as Michael J fox has done for Parkinson’s.
That you know, it’s still the there’s a lot more that needs to that’s still Unown about this disease the takeaway for me on that interview was I liked how Hoda kind of started off the interview with asking Bruce Willis’s wife. You know, how are you doing to kind of put the exclamation mark on the fact that you know, like you said the caregivers as often times not the center of attention here, but that she calls herself a care partner and that you know, she really still considers herself, you know a partner which is a beautiful thing and and you know, the the need to celebrate the good things and the joy of Life despite, you know, what is a really sort of a desperate situation and a very Bleak one. Unfortunately for Bruce
Willis. Yeah, we’ve talked a lot of them this podcast I think about like celebrities and social media stars who have health issues and they end up speaking about it and sort of raising awareness or making other people feel less alone and what they’re dealing with and while it might not be willist himself discussing it the fact that
Know as you’ve mentioned his partner and caregiver is still raising awareness about this severe form of dementia FTD. You know, I think when most people think of dementia, they think that most old people probably have a little bit of dementia. It’s a pretty common thing but you know cases of ftds are you know, as you said very severe and there is no cure for it. So, you know anytime that a someone in the public spot like like that can can sort of shed light on some of the caregiving issues. For example, I think is is always helpful for for people
and just in the interest of transparency as we were recording this Emma had posted a picture of Bruce along with her and their daughters and you know, obviously he looks good. It’s almost kind of the more of the heartbreaking thing that you think about too where it’s he looks good, but you know his association with reality and even control over his body is the thing that’s lacking which for somebody that was, you know, the star of the Die Hard franchise and
Pulp Fiction, it’s really something that’s sad to see about but again, obviously if there’s any sort of silver lying to it is raising a greater awareness about FTD and the caregiver aspect too which I know we had Richard Liu on the show about a month or so ago talking about the role that caregivers play in the healthcare journey in the patient journey, and that’s just as much important part to underscore as anything that we’ll discuss on the show Absolutely a great point about Richard Lou I forgotten about that interview everybody for a really great documentary on what it means to be caregiver. That’s a great one and listen to that interview that Jack did earlier this year.
Nearly every one of us has lost sleep to snoring and people have gone to great lengths to be able to mitigate snoring and get a restful night’s sleep.
However, a recent trend on TikTok has taken aim at snoring through a sketchy mechanism: taping your mouth shut to encourage nose breathing.
An initial search for “mouth taping” on TikTok generates scores of videos with thousands and even sometimes millions of views. They showcase people asleep with their mouths taped using anything from painter’s tape to Scotch tape, or a special brand known as “Hostage Tape.”
Users claim anecdotally that mouth taping results in a lack of morning breath and mouth dryness, leaving people energized after waking up.
However, cutting through the mouth taping noise on the platform are a few voices of reason who have emerged questioning the practice.
Several physician influencers have also made reaction videos to the practice, outlining the reasons why people should not try the trend despite claims that it can improve one’s health.
TikToker Doctor Rizwan starts out one video by acknowledging the fact that nose breathing can, in fact, lead to improved oxygen intake. However, he notes that mouth taping is not the way to get there.
less. I want to bring you into this because you went through and saw a number of people trying a number of different ways to go about math taping and all of them gave me that just immediate reaction of no don’t do this.
Yeah, you definitely get a viscer reaction of like, oh, why would you try to like tape your mouth shut while you’re sleeping that looks scary but people on tiktok have gotten kind of obsessed with it and they’re they’re all kind of obsessed with this idea. The mouth breathing is bad for you which you know, when I read about this on the Cleveland Clinic website there, there’s some benefits to breathing through your nose rather than mouth breathing because you’re nose can better filter out allergens pollution things like that, you know your lungs and throughout function better with moist air that’s brought in through the
Things like that. So there is some you know medical benefits According to some official accounts that nose breathing is better for you than mouth breathing.
But the fact that people are taping their mouths strut doesn’t have any clinical evidence of addressing, you know, some of the issues that might come with mouth breathing, you know, most of the experts who have commented on this have said that there’s literally nothing that taping your mouth shut is going to do that’s going to be medically beneficial for you. If anything there are some risks involved if a person has an underlying health condition or they have an underlying breathing problem that they’re not aware of or that they’re not diagnosed with yet taping your mouth shut kind of it shuts off your backup Air Supply your backup oxygen supply of something goes wrong with your nose breathing for example, so a lot of experts are kind of warning don’t do this, but still it’s this Obsession on tiktok. We’re literally millions of people are watching these videos and it’s crazy. Like they’re one of the videos with like three million views. The guy was like, you know, I was kind of worried and kind of scared at first that I’d like suffocate during the night, but I woke up,
Today and I felt great there’s no problem with and he was saying this totally unironically and yeah, it’s wild
the amount of times that I’ve gone to bed at night and then woken up with like a stuffy nose and the idea that you have taped off to your point your backup oxygen supply would tariff. I would be terrified of suffocating myself. Yes knowing my luck and another thing too that Lesha highlighted in the story that I thought was interesting was it’s not only for sleeping. There was one person I saw in the video that ran eight miles,
right? We were doing it during the day now and claiming that it’s better for you when you exercise to breathe through your nose. And yeah, there was a girl who ran like eight miles with her mouth tape shot even though there’s no
Evidence that this is good for you in any way.
I mean, it’s beyond parity Mark, please hop in here with with some element of Sanity. Yeah. Well one thing I can sort of anecdotally say is that, you know breathing through one’s nose.
does not necessarily completely cure snoring because as a
can see I consider someone who considers himself a lifelong nose breather. I have been told that I snore a little bit. So sorry to burst the bubble of anybody that you know is under the impression that it does but I I like the, you know, thank goodness for patient advocacy organizations because just like with the story you brought up earlier with Bruce Willis where they had the president of the AFT there to kind of dispel submits and and illuminate, you know, the disease for those who are not in the know here you have, you know, Lesha quotes the American Academy of sleep medicine saying that, you know kind of reminding people that it’s essential to approach sleep with evidence-based strategies that work and there could really be a dangerous downside as you both pointed out that this could really impair breathing instead of improving it so better to you know, seek out some really proven strategies here before trying something that could actually have a big downside also, what about pulling the tape off in the morning? Oh, yeah. No there were videos of people like, I mean some of these tapes were like,
Real Deal I’d never heard this hostage tape before but that was like the big thing that people have used because it keeps it sharp and then you can peel it off. I don’t know, you know that people are out there conspiranting with duct tape or something like that doing whatever to their face now if it doesn’t pull the skin off with it, right?
Yeah.
To borrow a line from Charlemagne the God on The Breakfast Club. I think we have our Donkey of the Day or villain of the week, however, you want to put it.
And finally, an amateur poker player lied about having terminal colon cancer in order to raise funds to get into the World Series of Poker Main Event and apologized for lying, saying, “What I did was wrong.”
Rob Mercer, a 37-year-old from California, originated the lie in June and reportedly raised between $30,000 to $50,000, including the $10,000 he needed to buy into the World Series of Poker Main event in July in Las Vegas.
One donation he received was from another chronically ill poker player who staked into the tournament through private donations. He gave $2,500 to Mercer’s cause.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that several other poker players became suspicious of Mercer when he provided vague responses to questions about his terminal illness and didn’t provide proof of his diagnosis.
He eventually admitted to the outlet that it was all a fib.
“I did lie about having colon cancer. I don’t have colon cancer. I used that to cover my situation,” he said. “What I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have told people I have colon cancer. I did that just as a spur-of-the-moment thing when someone asked me what kind of cancer I had.”
Mark, I know that in our line of work we cover a lot of awareness campaigns a lot of them that coincide with cancer. There’s you know, a lot of questions and issues that people have with the GoFundMe nature of the healthcare system in America, and this seems to be that kind of perfect, you know intersection of bad actor abusing the system.
Profiting off of it for their own means and really setting back other efforts that people have to raise awareness and raise funds for those in need when they get sick with diseases like this. Yeah, I fear the impact the blowback that this will have for other people trying to raise money. That’s really good point check but you know, I was also impressed with the honor among the poker Community, you know, they’re they really look out for their own. But yeah this could for sure, you know anytime you have a bad actor like that. They do more harm than good in terms of, you know, making other people nervous before, you know, supporting others who could truly be in need but that’s not necessarily A Bad Thing to you know, use these as learning moments in terms of you know, these GoFundMe appeals and to try to do a little background research, you know before, you know, clicking that support button. Yeah,
I see this before but my question is, you know, did he have to pay the money back?
That he received a receieable to just keep it.
Yeah. Well we’ve seen from what he told the Las Vegas Review Journal is that he does believe that he has cancer which again this guy I think is already kind of lost The credibility argument of the whole discussion, but he says that he does have breast cancer again take that with a grain of salt and so he has no intention of returning the money that he obtained through GoFundMe, which I think raises a whole nother.
Aspect of the conversation where it’s like okay, you’re sitting on five figures that you raise from people that really thought that you were sick and we’re trying to do a good thing by you and now you’re not gonna return the money, but I don’t know if there’s any obligation on him to do so, I don’t know it’s it’s a tricky situation to kind of go through don’t you think
right? I mean, you know, as you mentioned it’s it’s a sign that this go fund me Healthcare model in the US has its pitfalls for a variety of reasons and hopefully this, you know this event with this guy won’t negatively impact patients who actually do need to set up GoFundMe accounts in the future.
Yeah. I think it’s an issue that spans not only through health care but through charity and other aspects too is that you are relying on the the good nature of people and if people abuse that obviously they’re gonna be more tentative to
You know reach for their their pocketbook and lend something or support a cause that they believe in absolutely and he does say, you know, he’s sorry there and he does as you point out have another form of cancer. We think you know, he claims he does seem remorseful but his credibility took a shot there. So the truth will come out eventually, but in the meantime, we hope that doesn’t affect people who are considering supporting people with cancer or other terminal illnesses.
Thanks for joining us on this week’s episode of the MM+M Podcast. Be sure to listen to next week’s episode when I’ll be joined by a special guest from our upcoming MM+M Awards.
That’s it for this week. The mmm podcast is produced by Bill Fitzpatrick Gordon failure, lesabusak and Jack O’Brien. Our theme music is by scissy and Son rate review and follow every episode wherever you listen to podcasts new episodes out every week and be sure to check out our website. Mmm -online.com for the top news stories and farmer marketing.
