Serena Williams, tennis-player extraordinaire, has been in my news feed quite a lot lately. Seeing her name reminded me of a little itch in the back of my mind about a story from 2024… something to do with migraines… medicine… and complaints…
I went looking, and here’s the first article I found: FDA slams AbbVie for misleading claims in Serena Williams ad
The ad appears to start with Ms Williams struggling in bed, then goes on to suggest that her migraine can be healed by the use of a medication called Ubrelvy (I think its called Ubrogepant in Australia).
[Image source: UBRELVY TV Spot, ‘Anytime, Anywhere Migraine Medicine: Featuring Serena Williams – iSpot.tv]
According to what I can find, the ad then shows Ms Williams getting out of bed after her voice-over rejoices about how quickly the medication worked to heal her migraine.
The FDA’s letter of complaint (which I found here), notes that they take exception to the before-and-after montage that implies a speed of recovery which is not indicated by actual clinical trials. Moreover, they object to the use of a celebrity which will “amplify” the misleading content.
[Whilst the letter appears real enough, it isn’t dated, which strikes me as odd… so who knows…]
Later in the ad, there is apparently a reiteration of the speed of recovery with the message that one dose eliminates the pain.
[As someone who takes migraine medication fairly frequently, it can often take up to an hour to get relief, and that relief is rarely a full-reversal of the pain… “eliminate” is a big word full of big promises.]
If it seems like the FDA might be nit-picking, relief-time actually IS a big deal. In a book review I did nearly a year ago (here), there was a fairly grim statistic: “75% [of patients said] their medications were too slow in relieving the pain or didn’t relieve it enough.”
Time matters.
So, if someone implies they can instantly eliminate your migraine – your ears are going to prick up and your heart is going to swell with anticipatory joy…
Oh… and circling back to nit-picking again, if it seems like the FDA might be bossing around a nobody, you’d be wrong. In another article I found (here) it said: “AbbVie’s migraine drug Ubrelvy (ubrogepant) is slated to be the top-selling drug in the migraine space in 2033 across the seven bigger pharma markets as total spend across those countries are set to rake in $16.4 billion.”
WOW!
Big pharma debates aside, Serena Williams DOES have migraines.
More than that, she says her migraines really do disappear when she takes the medication [and some people really could be that lucky I guess]. In an interview for Cosmopolitan, she says her pain “went from, like, a really bad migraine attack to literally just nothing.”
In a People article in 2020 she speaks of having migraines in her 20s, and how the invisibility of her illness meant most people thought she should just “Tough it out” – there was no bruising, no swelling, no limp… how bad could it be???
Luckily for her, her migraines tended to be irregular, so they didn’t have a massive impact on her life… until covid. Then, while quarantining with her family, she apparently started to get them daily. That’s when she discovered the above medication worked so well for her she signed up as a spokesperson.
So good on her… I think… but perhaps, be careful how you pitch that success, I guess.
Many months ago, I wrote about a similar backlash when Lady Gaga promoted a different brand of migraine medication – only in that instance, it wasn’t the medicine supplier that got in trouble, it was Lady Gaga for “selling out” to big pharma… strangely, that doesn’t seem to be the case here for Ms Williams… I can’t find negative publicity that is specifically directed at HER.
I do still see a slight potential for a conflict of interest – who knows whether Ms Williams was on the payroll when she went from really bad to “literally just nothing”… it doesn’t hurt to be a little curious / cautious… but then again… when you find something that works for you, I can fully understand the almost evangelical zeal with which you would want to promote it.
Mindfulness has made the biggest difference for me… and so here I am spruiking its benefits three times a week… just because I do it for free, does that make my intentions any more altruistic or noble? Would your opinion change if someone offered me a million dollars to promote one form of mindfulness over another?? Would YOU take someone’s money if their healing approach worked wonders for you?
Something to think about.
Take care taking care, Linda x
The Mindful Migraine 
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