Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20111

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

Moynihan R
Glaxo defends flu campaign
The Australian Financial Review 2000 Jun 20

Full text:

Drug giant GlaxoWellcome is defending its public education campaign about influenza against accusations it is a thinly disguised advertisement for its new flu drug, Relenza.

The Australian Consumers Association has called on health authorities to pull Glaxo’s flu advertisements, arguing that they contravene a ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines.

Glaxo’s ads – running on television and in newspapers – stress the difference between the common cold and influenza and urge people with symptoms to seek medical help because, “now, your doctor can treat the flu”.

The only new influenza treatment available is Glaxo’s controversial anti-flu drug Relenza, which costs $50 a pack and is being aggressively marketed to doctors.

Evidence collected by health authorities suggests the benefits of Relenza are marginal at best, reducing the number of days people suffer symptoms by one day on average, from six to five.

Public health authority Professor Steven Leeder yesterday described the Glaxo advertising campaign as “pathetic” and “disgraceful” and an indirect form of advertising.

“It’s like tobacco companies sponsoring sporting events, without mentioning cigarettes”, Professor Leeder said.

A GlaxoWellcome spokesperson rejected the criticism, saying the advertising was a “serious educational awareness campaign” developed in conjunction with senior medical experts.

The spokesperson said the advertisements were of a “community service nature as they apply to a disease that is at least as serious as road and workplace accidents”.

A doctor who has worked closely with Glaxo, Monash University Professor Chris Silagy, described the company’s educational campaign as “direct promotion” and “potentially offensive”.

But he said there was a real need to educate people about the difference between influenza and other viruses.

“People ought to have the choice to access a drug that might help them. In an ideal world education should be run independent of any vested interests. But who will fund that?” he said.

Queensland University lecturer Dr Fred de Looze agrees about the need for education and says Relenza significantly shortens illness.

But in Britain, authorities concerned the drug may not offer value for money have advised that “professionals should not prescribe” Relenza, pending more research.

The US Food & Drug Administration has been so concerned about potential harmful effects that warned doctors earlier this year of the potentially deadly complications which may be associated with taking Relenza.