Meds Marketed to Kids in NJ Schools

A captured audience inside the public school- a marketers dream.

Q:How does Gilead, Truvada, Planned Parenthood, NJFPL, and Bayer get teachers to advertise their products to over 1 MILLION NJ Children?

A:They get the NJDOE (New Jersey Department of Education) to put it in the standards for public schools.

The most blatant, in-your-face marketing scheme comes with the mention of PrEP® (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) within the NJ state standards (required to be covered by schools). Notice that whoever wrote the standards conveniently forgot to add the registered trademark sign next to PrEP® which can be found on the Truvada generics website. PEP refers to another product owned by Gilead (that is also mentioned in the state standards listing at the bottom of this article).

Gilead is in some litigation regarding the ownership of PEP and PrEP but there is no mistakes made here, PEP and PreP refer to patented pharma products.

If you haven’t already figured out … PrEP is medicine to prevent getting HIV from sex or injection drug use. PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) is medicine to prevent HIV after a possible exposure. PEP is only used in emergency situations and must be started within 72 hours after a recent possible exposure to HIV.

What is this doing in our public schools? Why do these companies get to market their products in the NJ state standards? Did they pay someone to do that?

And guess who is a resource to get these medications? That’s right, Planned Parenthood.

More subtle are the standards that specify teachers to direct the children towards “resources” for prevention of STI’s and pregnancy… and these recourses are Planned Parenthood, their partners like NJFPL and pharmaceutical companies.

This is further revealed when looking at the NJ sample 5th to 12th lesson plans revealed by Senator Holly Schepisi. These lessons specifically directs kids to cooperate websites for Planned Parenthood, Bayer and NJFPL.

The lessons direct students to a quiz to help the children decide which of birth control products is best for the student to purchase. This site is supported by a coalition of international partners with an interest in sexual and reproductive health listed at the bottom of the webpage.

Its unfortunate that our schools are being used as an free marketing tool to advertise to our kids.

There is nothing in the law that prevents schools from directly marketing to students in mass about these companies because of the language in the NJ standards that requires teachers to PROVIDE RESOURCES.

Lets be clear, I’m not saying that they shouldn’t learn about protecting themselves from HIV, but they need to GO TO A DOCTOR who will decide to prescribe medications for them. The schools shouldn’t be directly marketing pharma products to kids by using corporation web pages and detailing the medications that they should be using.

What other products should they market to kids in school? What about Statins? Heart disease is the number 1 killer in America. What about types of immunosuppressive and chemo therapies for cancers?

The number 1 killer of school aged and college aged children is accidents, so the most important thing that schools need to do is teach the kids not to be reckless and be a good decision maker. Where are those lessons?

Standards are from the DOE website

2.1.8.PP.3: Identify prenatal practices that support a healthy pregnancy and identify where to find medically accurate sources of information about prenatal care.

2.1.8.SSH.10: Identify short and long-term contraception and safer sex methods that are effective and describe how to access and use them (e.g., abstinence, condom).

2.1.8.CHSS.5: Identify medically accurate sources of information about STIs, including HIV, such as local STIs /HIV prevention, steps to obtain PrEP and PEP, testing, and treatment resources.

2.1.12.PP.2: Develop a plan to eliminate or reduce risk for unintended pregnancy and/or STIs (including HIV) and identify ways to overcome potential barriers to prevention.

2.1.12.CHSS.4: Identify medically accurate sources of information and local services that provide contraceptive methods (including emergency contraception and condoms) and pregnancy options (including parenting, abortion, safe haven, adoption, and prenatal care).