Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20137

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: Magazine

Moodie P
Feeling blue? Have we got the drug for you!
New Zealand GP 2000 May 310

Full text:

I like watching television advertisements. They may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they’re usually more interesting than the programmes.

It’s obvious filmmakers have put a lot of money into them, even if they are only 15 seconds long, and it seems only polite to watch.

One of the reasons for advertising is to raise awareness of products or services, and I am sure that is true. But it does also tend to help the cashflow a little.

Well, maybe more than just a little … We’ve been told that in seven years Schering increased its sales from about $NZ240 million to more than $NZ5.6 billion in the United States because of its direct-to-consumer advertising of its prescription-only allergy drug Claritin (yes, they do spell it differently there). That is a 23-fold increase.

That increase is credited to an aggressive advertising campaign that ploughed $NZ400 million to $NZ700 million each year into advertising direct to consumers.

We don’t like it

New Zealand and the United States are the only countries in the world that allow direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising for prescription medicines. And it is increasing, as we see with Viagra, Zovirax, Flixotide, Xenical…

Being up at the sharp end we are naturally at the sharp end of the debate, too. Pharmac has taken a stand on the topic – saying DTC advertising is not a good idea.

The first thing to say about all of this is that I don’t like stopping consenting adults watching what they like. Nor, for that matter, do I like seeing the marketplace constrained from doing its lawful business.

But plainly we have concerns. The first question has to be why do drug companies have to advertise at all? If it is to raise awareness about a disease then we don’t need product advertising at all. In fact, it amazes me that companies can spend millions on advertising and then have the temerity to say that they have no money to spend on research in New Zealand.

Come to think of it, I would have assumed that research was an essential part of a company’s activities, rather than something you hand out like lollies to good compliant countries that pay their bills without questioning their basis.

The second question is why advertise prescription-only medicines to consumers at all? It makes sense to advertise in GP magazine because doctors are the decision-makers and understand what is meant by ‘contraindications’.

The real reason companies advertise to the public is that it works. Statistics show that when a patient requests a branded drug from their doctor they get it 85 percent of the time. Clever advertising? Doesn’t that make us doctors look either lax or compliant?

The third question is one of balance. Do these advertisements give a balanced description of the product as well as a description of the other possible treatments?

The big question is, however, just how much information can be given about a complex product in 30 seconds. If you are going to advertise pharmaceuticals, you have to get across rational messages, not just emotional blasts.

The final problem is that with the profit on medication it is only the patented medicines that can afford to advertise. A generic may well do the job just as well.

We have to think about the fact that advertising is a method of increasing demand. There is nothing wrong with that in a normal market, I guess. But in a market where there is a fixed budget and a third-party payer, are we distorting the market and cutting out funding for another drug?

The more we advertise medications, the more we have the potential to worry those who are well and raise the expectation that ‘for every ill there is a pill’. It’s like ‘if your willy won’t work…’ I won’t go on.