Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8218

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: Journal Article

Simmonds H.
Prescription medicines Code of Practice Authority investigates criticisms of advertisements.
BMJ 1998 Feb 7; 316:(7129):476

Abstract:

Some points regarding criticisms of the laws of Europe and Great Britain regarding prescription drug advertising are summarized and the procedures used by the British Code of Practice Authority to deal with the pharmaceutical industry and complaints regarding the content or presentation of prescription drug advertisements are briefly discussed; specific complaints regarding advertisements for nifedipine (Adalat) and donepezil hydrochloride (Aricept) are mentioned.

Keywords:
Advertising* Drug Industry* Ethics, Medical Great Britain Prescriptions, Drug*

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963