RealAge = Real Information for Drug Companies

Did you see the story (originally from the New York Times, reprinted in the Pioneer Press) reporting that the RealAge quiz turns over information about its members to all the big drug companies email targeting? And that the users aren't told this when they sign up?

For instance, according to the Times story:

Steve Williamson, an executive at the medical company Hologic, uses RealAge to sell a treatment called NovaSure, which removes the endometrial lining in post-childbearing, premenopausal women who have heavy periods.

With RealAge, he buys lists of women who have answered a test question by saying they have heavy menstrual bleeding, among other criteria. He chooses the ones in the 37- to 49-year-old age range, then sends them a series of e-mail messages. Several of the messages do not mention NovaSure, they just identify heavy bleeding as a problem — then, he said, the messages suggest NovaSure as a solution.

Like many other over-40s, I've taken the quiz. (I found the questions, while pretty lengthy, to be a bit odd... not asking about things in family history that seemed pretty important.) It told me my real age was 29, which I found a bit hard to believe. I sure don't feel the way I did when I was 29 -- but maybe my real age then was 14, who knows.

To take the quiz, you have to give them your email and create a password. As you take the quiz, the site constantly asks you to become a member. If you click yes at any time, you are agreeing that they can "share your personal data with third parties to fulfill the services that you have asked us to provide to you." The site never mentions that those third parties are drug companies, and it seems to me that just clicking "become a member" does not mean you have asked RealAge to give you any services.

I took the quiz about a year ago, and don't remember if I clicked the "be a member" button, but I doubt I did. I haven't gotten any drug company emails, either (not counting all those spams for enlarging various parts of the body, of course).

The Times article ended with a quote from a woman (who happens to be a former pharmaceutical salesperson) who finds nothing wrong with what RealAge is doing. "So many patients are so clueless and they count on their doctor to know everything and be right 100 percent of the time and don’t always inform themselves, and I think that's a huge mistake," Ms. Swan said. "As a patient and a person, you have to take your health into your own hands."

Yeah, right. This is the same logic that says advertising drugs direct to consumers on TV and in magazines and newspapers will improve everyone's health.

We've all see how well that's worked out.