Diabetes Advocate Asks PR Companies To Stop Exploiting Patient Bloggers
Quick post to the PR professionals in the healthcare sphere:
When someone dies, it is terrible tragedy. That person leaves behind a family, loved ones, and – especially when they die young – their future. If someone dies as a result of diabetes, or due to complications from diabetes, or from something else entirely but they happened to have diabetes, and you decide to exploit their death to gain pageviews for your website? (See also: Brittany Murphy, Casey Johnson)
Come on.
There’s a difference between passing on information that could help people improve their lives, and then there’s pure, TMZ-style exploitation. Diabetes advocates writing about their lives with this disease, like the blogs that many of us write every day, actually do some good for some people. People reading it could be helped to feel less alone. People writing could achieve the same goal.
It’s important to consider the source of your information. And it’s important to remember that there are PEOPLE behind every news story about someone dying or getting sick or dealing with emotional or physical pain. Have we become so immersed in the gossip that we forget how to treat people kindly? And compassionately?
You’re better than that.
(It’s also important to not mess with a pregnant woman. Please don’t email me shifty press releases. You know who you are.)
/rant
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
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