A Twitter hoax cost the US pharmaceutical giant billions of dollars, but the viral prank sparked another unexpected crisis – a new wave of scrutiny over the high cost of its insulin.
Authentic-looking fake accounts proliferated after Twitter launched a payment verification service last week, the latest in a string of chaos since Elon Musk’s blockbuster $44 billion purchase of the influential platform. It is the most.
Among the victims was drugmaker Eli Lilly, whose stock price plummeted — wiping out billions in market capitalization — after a parody account with a verification tag bought for $8 tweeted that insulin was being made available for free. .
The company was forced to issue an apology for a “misleading message from a fake Lilly account,” but the misinformation drew fresh attention to the long-running debate about high insulin prices.
“What you should really be apologizing for is the cost of life-saving insulin,” tweeted Qasim Rasheed, a human rights lawyer based in Chicago.
“People are dying because of your greed (and) cruelty. Apologize for that.”
Gaining traction with such comments was a cartoon meme in which a half-elephant, half-human character incited people to worry about the price of insulin more than the price of gas.
“Fake Eli Lilly may be representing something closer to the truth than the real Eli Lilly,” Peter Mebardock from the nonprofit Public Citizen told JEE News.
“Parody succeeds when it exposes an embarrassing and widely misunderstood reality.”
‘Appreciable pricing’ –
In recent decades, insulin prices have risen in the United States, costing eight times more than in 32 relatively high-income countries, according to a 2020 study by the Rand Corporation.
A survey released in October by the nonprofit T1International found that one in four respondents living with diabetes reported rationing their insulin because of financial stress.
On Monday, which marked World Diabetes Day, dozens of advocacy groups, including Public Citizen, sent a letter to Congress calling for a halt to insulin price hikes.
“There is no defense for Eli Lilly’s mispricing of insulin,” Meberdok said.
“It’s long past time that we provide access to insulin for everyone, and yes – it should be free,” he added.
The backlash against Eli Lilly showed the real-life potential of online misinformation to trigger chaos and financial loss. The company’s stock price has recovered marginally after last week’s decline.
But in this rare instance, it brought to light a much-overlooked public health problem.
‘Fear’
Al Tompkins, a senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute, told JEE New, “Misinformation is not without impact – Eli Lilly’s stock price has fallen dramatically.”
But by capitalizing on the chaos of Twitter’s payment verification policy, the joke “managed to make the insulin drug price conversation relatable to a lot of people”.
On Friday, Twitter disabled sign-ups for a controversial feature known as Twitter Blue, with reports that it was temporarily disabled to help fix impersonation issues — but Before many brands achieved success.
Shares of other firms such as aerospace defense company Lockheed Martin also took a hit after being targeted by impersonators.
The joke sparked panic at Eli Lilly, with officials trying to contact Twitter representatives to remove it, but the platform did not respond for hours, the Washington Post reported on Monday. .
As of Friday, Eli Lilly executives ordered a halt to all ad campaigns on Twitter, a move that could potentially cost the platform millions of dollars.
That would deal another blow to Twitter, which has cut nearly half of its workforce since Musk took over as it struggles to grow revenue.
Eli Lilly and Twitter did not respond to JEE New’s request for comment.
