Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20095

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: news

Pill scare shows advertising risk, says Pharmac
The Evening Post 2000 Jun 22

Full text:

The blood clot scare surrounding third-generation contraceptive pills should be a warning to drug firms about advertising directly to consumers, government drug-buying agency Pharmac says.

Intense marketing of the pills to doctors had made New Zealand women the world’s highest users if third-generation contraceptive pills, Pharmac general manager Wayne McNee said.

“The use of third-generation oral contraceptives really peaked before the drug industry’s recent push into direct to consumer advertising.

“However, it is a sobering thought to think what might have happened if women had been bombarded with messages promoting these drugs, as is happening with drug advertising today”.

A Otago University and Health Ministry study published last week found 20 women on the pill died of blood clots in the lungs in one decade. It also said that for every 100,000 women taking an oral contraceptive, one would die each year from a blood clot in the veins.

Blood clots are associated with second and third generation oral contraceptives, but third generation pills carry a higher risk.

Mr McNee said at the peak of marketing to doctors, 60 percent of New Zealand women were using the third generation pill, compared with 5 percent in Australia and 10 percent in the United States.

“Not only were they said to have less risk of complications but also that they were a “more feminine’ pill and would cause fewer of the minor side effects”.

However, the US Federal Drug Agency told manufacturers not to claim these benefits as scientific proof was lacking, Mr McNee said.

“We have to be constantly on guard to ensure that New Zealanders get the best treatments, not the best advertised one”.

Most new drugs entering the market had also been studied on only a limited number of patients, he said.

“That means that while new drugs are presented as fully safe and effective, their safety profile becomes clear only after they have been used for a few years”.

Latest figures show the number of New Zealand women taking the third generation pill plunged to 52,761 in March this year from 168,327 three years earlier.

New Zealand is the only country beside the United States that allows direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines.