Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20153

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

Rankin P
Prescription-only medication should be advertised in the media: Yes
Medical Observer 2000 Aug 430

Abstract:

Dr Peter Rankin argues that direct-to-consumer advertising would provide a level playing field for established therapies.

Full text:

Prescription-only medication should be allowed to be advertised in the consumer media because the present system favours those few new drugs that achieve airplay with strategically timed press releases.

Because they cannot compete for public attention, existing therapies are often cast in an unjustified negative light. For example, when oral montelukast sodium was released amidst considerable fanfare last year, the other therapeutic options for asthma were disadvantaged. The burden then fell on doctors to provide the necessary balance to often extravagant media stories.

Ironically, advertising restrictions relating to medicines are far more stringent than those governing press reporting or current affairs TV, where embellishment is usually part of the territory.

If advertisements are misleading, other drug companies and consumer watchdogs can – and will – prohibit their publication and seek legal redress.

No such safeguards exist under the existing haphazard system.

A further anomaly of the current arrangement is that medications for minor ailments such as haemorrhoids are able to be extensively promoted. In contradistinction, therapies for more important conditions are ignored.

All sorts of absurd claims can be made for quack cures. Working on the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” principle, vulnerable consumers are attracted to these un-proven remedies. My local Sunday newspaper is running an advertisement for colonic irrigation which claims, among many other things, that the treatment benefits asthma.

It is time to fight back against such nonsense. The weight loss, hair-replacement, impotence and cosmetic industries, to name a few, rely on pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo to promote their wares.

We have been silent. We need to use every means possible to counter such propaganda. If you can’t beat them (and in many areas we are losing the fight), we must join them.

For too long we have fought with one hand tied behind our backs. We need to promote proven, successful medical therapies with every means at our disposal. Only then will we be able to attract the the sceptics who ordinarily wouldn’t be seen dead inside a doctors surgery.

Patients have a right to know as much as we can tell them about their medication. They read the information leaflets that accompany their medication, look up therapies on the Internet and consult books about drugs they are prescribed.

Unfortunately, these sources of consumer information have an inherent bias to the negative consequences of medication.

Patients tend to be bombarded with the downside: the side effects of medication and uncertain long-term consequences. They hear little of the good news and long-term benefits of taking medication.

Positives such as testimonials from fellow sufferers and reports of lives saved by adhering to life-sustaining therapies are thin on the ground. Information on important statistics including risk-to-benefit ratios are even rarer.

In the US, where direct-to-consumer advertising has been permitted for some time, survey results indicate consumers generally perceive the ads to be potentially helpful. Three-quarters agreed that if they saw an ad for a drug which was subsequently considered necessary for them, the ad could assist in discussing treatment options with their doctors.

Traditionally, patients did what their doctors told them. Explanation was unnecessary; the doctor’s word was enough. Those days are gone. Our responsibilities now include ensuring our patients are fully informed about all the options to manage their conditions. Used appropriately, direct-to-consumer advertising can become an important tool in that process.