Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18934

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Unpublished Work

Health Action International (HAI) Europe, International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB), Medicines in Europe Forum (MiEF)
Patient 'information': Refuse direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs
Joint letter to the Members of the European Parliament 2010 Nov 16

Full text:

Dear Member of the European Parliament,

On 23 November 2010, the controversial European Commission proposals on patient-“information” come up for vote.

In order to make informed choices, patients need independent comparative information. Despite the numerous amendments adopted in the ENVI Committee of the European Parliament on 28 September 2010, the aim of the European Commission proposals remains the same: lift the ban on certain forms of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs (read our joint analysis of the reports adopted in ENVI Commission publicly accessible here (3 pages)).
Pharmaceutical companies are at the same time both ‘judge and defendant’ when it comes to communicating about their products. Because of this conflict of interest, direct-to-consumer advertising on prescription drug can never provide the information patients need.

We can do much better than lift the ban on DTCA. The current European legislative framework is clear and already allows pharmaceutical companies to make the officially approved information available, notably via the patient information leaflets and, more generally, via all the elements of medicine packaging. However, pharmaceutical companies still need to make a lot of progress in this area.
In ENVI Committee, MEPs have improved the European Commission’s initial proposals by refusing to support several forms of disguised advertising, and by proposing the monitoring of the pharmaceutical companies’ public communications on their prescription only medicines by the Member States’ health authorities.
However, accepting that pharmaceutical companies can communicate with the public on reimbursement, price, pack changes, environmental impact, and “frequently asked questions” on the products they sell is tantamount to legalising reminder advertising. This marketing practice is aimed at ensuring that the general public remembers the brand name of a particular product by repeated communications on this product ( ).
The proposed changes to the legislation constitute a regression in terms of public health protection. These changes will put pressure on the European health systems by generating additional expensive bureaucracy, and causing a significant increase in expenditure (notably costs to manage any adverse effects caused by medicines that patients do not necessarily need).

Refusing direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription medicines serves patients’ interests. In the current uncertain economic climate, it is better to devote public resources to strengthening the transparency of the drug regulatory agencies, so as to allow them to fulfil one of their core missions – providing the public with reliable, independent, and comparative information – rather than to fund an expensive and ineffective monitoring system of pharmaceutical communications on their products ( ).
In 2002, the European Parliament massively rejected (by 494 votes to 42) a proposal to lift the ban on DTCA of prescription drugs.
Given the health risks and the additional costs, the ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines by pharmaceutical companies, even when disguised as “information”, must be maintained.
At the plenary session on 23 November 2010, we therefore ask that you reject outright these proposals in order to protect public health.

Health Action International (HAI) Europe
International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB)
Medicines in Europe Forum (MiEF)

For more details, click on the hyperlinks:

● Our joint analysis of the European Commission’s initial proposals (March 2009)
(www.haiweb.org/06032009/6Mar2009JointPolicyBriefLegalProposalsoniinformationtopatients.pdf)

● Joint press release by 29 organisations “Direct-to-consumer communication by pharmaceutical companies? Europeans deserve better” (March 2010)
(www.isdbweb.org/documents/uploads/vecchi/press_release/PressReleaseInfo_20100315Imp.pdf)

● Our 11 concrete proposals on how to improve European citizens’ access to independent and comparative health information (March 2010) (www.prescrire.org/Docu/DOCSEUROPE/11ProposalstoImproveCitizensAccessInfo.pdf)

● Our joint analysis of the reports adopted in ENVI Commission on the 28 September 2010 (October 2010)
(www.isdbweb.org/documents/uploads/campagne/view.pdf)