Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2761
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
Tell the FDA to stop prescription drug ads
Democracy in Action 2005 Nov 13
http://web.archive.org/web/20070220212838/http://hq.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/commercialalert/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1415
Abstract:
Tell the FDA to stop prescription drug ads
It’s time to end the $4 billion annual marketing assault by big pharmaceutical companies.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is collecting public comment on prescription drug marketing.
Commercial Alert is organizing thousands of citizens to tell the FDA to stop prescription drug ads.
Over two hundred medical school professors have already endorsed Commercial Alert’s statement opposing direct-to-consumer prescription drug marketing.
Now we need your support. Please write to the FDA today.
Notes:
Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:
Here is a petition which is well worth while signing up to.
Full text:
Tell the FDA to stop prescription drug ads
It’s time to end the $4 billion annual marketing assault by big pharmaceutical companies.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is collecting public comment on prescription drug marketing.
Commercial Alert is organizing thousands of citizens to tell the FDA to stop prescription drug ads.
Over two hundred medical school professors have already endorsed Commercial Alert’s statement opposing direct-to-consumer prescription drug marketing.
Now we need your support. Please write to the FDA today.
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Drug Marketing
Direct-to-consumer marketing of prescription drugs should be prohibited.
In 2004, pharmaceutical companies spent more than $4 billion in an onslaught of advertising to promote prescription drugs. This advertising does not promote public health. It increases the cost of drugs and the number of unnecessary prescriptions, which is expensive to taxpayers, and can be harmful or deadly to patients.
For more than half a century, certain drugs have been available to patients only with a prescription, because all drugs, including those that can heal, can also cause harm. Doctors, nurses and other health professionals have the necessary training and experience to help them decide whether drugs are indicated in particular cases. This is why they make the prescription decision, not patients.
Prescription drug advertising pressures health professionals to prescribe particular medications, and often the ones that may be less effective and more expensive and dangerous. This intrudes in the relationship between medical professionals and patients, and disrupts the therapeutic process. It takes up valuable time to explain to patients why they may have been misled by the drug advertisements they have seen.
Prescription drug advertising is not educational. It is inherently misleading because it features emotive imagery and omits crucial information about drugs and their proper use, as well as about side effects and contraindications that can be found on the full FDA-approved label. Drug companies have an inherent and irredeemable financial conflict-of-interest which drives them to exaggerate the positive and minimize the negative qualities of their own products.
At a minimum, direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising should not exist unless accompanied by the full FDA-approved label. Nor should drug ads be allowed to display imagery that is primarily emotive and not educational. Drug ads on TV and radio should be prohibited because they cannot meet this standard for truthfulness.
More Information
News Releases
200+ Medical School Professors Call for End to DTC Prescription Drug Ads
Gary Ruskin | October 27th, 2005
PhRMA’s New Ad Policy is “Craven Self-Preservation,” Says Commercial Alert
Gary Ruskin | August 2nd, 2005
Keep Drug-Sponsored Patient Channel Out of Hospitals, Doctors Say
Gary Ruskin | February 25th, 2003
Articles
Testimony at FDA Hearing on DTC Drug Marketing
Gary Ruskin | November 2nd, 2005
Related Articles and Links
Related Articles
Professors Speak Out Against Advertising Directly to Consumers
Jeanne Lenzer | British Medical Journal | November 3rd, 2005
New Zealand to Ban DTC Advertising by ‘06 | Advertising Age | September 5th, 2005
Pharma Chief Says Drug Ad Limits Are “Human Rights Abuse”
Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert | August 4th, 2005
Drug Firms Seek Ad Remedy
Margaret Webb Pressler | Washington Post | August 3rd, 2005
Web Sites New Twist in Celebrity Drug Ads
Linda A. Johnson | Associated Press | July 17th, 2005
Senate Leader Seeks Moratorium on Ads for New Prescription Drugs
Kathy Kiely | USA Today | July 1st, 2005
Tube Feeding
Vincent P. Bzdek | Washington Post | July 8th, 2003
Patient Channel in hospitals: healthy move? The new TV network says its information is educational. Critics call it manipulative.
Alexandra Marks | Christian Science Monitor | March 19th, 2003
Critics Object to Drug Ads on Hospital Channel
Stephaie Riesenman | Reuters | February 26th, 2003
Patient Channel To Blast Ads At Bedridden
Suzanne Vrancia | Wall Street Journal | September 26th, 2002
Heartfelt Advice, Hefty Fees
Melody Peterson | New York Times | August 11th, 2002
Drug Ads Hyping Anxiety Make Some Uneasy
Shankar Vedantam | Washington Post | July 16th, 2001
External Links
Floor statement on prescription drug advertising
Senator Bill Frist | July 1st, 2005
Warning letters to pharmaceutical companies
Food and Drug Administration
Must See TV
Michael Shaw, BAGnews | September 18, 2003
America’s Other Drug Problem: How the Drug Industry Distorts Medicine and Politics
Arnold Relman & Marcia Angell, New Republic
FDA Oversight of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising Has Limitations
US General Accounting Office (GAO) | October, 2002
The Educational Value of Consumer-Targeted Prescription Drug Print Advertising
Robert Bell, Michael Wilkes, Richard Kravitz | December, 2000
Comments on Proposed Food and Drug Administration Survey Entitled FDA: Attitudinal and Behavioral Effects of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs
Public Citizen Health Research Group | September 28, 1998
Testimony on Direct to Consumer Advertising
Sidney M. Wolfe MD, Public Citizen | July 24, 2001
Essential Action’s page on the FDA and Commercial Speech Protections
Essential Action
Direct-to-Consumer Advertising — Education or Emotion Promotion
Sidney M. Wolfe MD, New England J. Medicine | February 14, 2002
Providing Presecription Medicine Information to Consumers: Is There a Role for Direct to Consumer Promotion
Health Action International | January 10, 2002
Testimony on Direct-to-Consumer Promotion of Prescription Drugs
Cindy Pearson, Nat’l Womens Health Network | October 19, 1995
Feminists Challenge Unethical Marketing by Prescription Drug Companies
Judy Norsigian | March, 2001
Influence of Direct to Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising and Patients’ Requests on Prescribing Decisions: Two Site Cross Sectional Survey
Barbara Mintzes et al., British Medical Journal | February 2, 2002
How Direct to Consumer Advertising Is Putting the Squeeze on Physicians
Phyllis Maguire, ACP/ASIM Observer | March, 1999
ACP/ASIM Policy Statement on Direct to Consumer Advertising for Prescription Drugs
Am. Coll. of Physicians/Am. Soc. Int. Medicine | October 9, 1998
————————————————————————————————————————————————- Details from the FDA at – http://www.commercialalert.org/FDAhearingnotice.pdf
