Advertising Prescription Drugs!

I'm sure you've noticed the marked increase in direct to consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising on TV. I'm sure many of you are like me when I wondered why they were advertising drugs I couldn't buy without a doctor's prescription. Well, it just so happens pharmaceutical companies like making money. That's not a bad thing in principle, of course. Nor is it a bad thing that they want to advertise and market their products. They are good at what they do and they are the most profitable companies around- more profitable than banks; more profitable than the oil companies! No mistake about it, their advertising helps them sell their products in a very competitive marketplace. After all, there are usually many alternative therapeutic strategies available to consumers. But just because you have the bucks shouldn't mean 'anything goes', especially if you consider that the #3 cause of mortality in the US and Canada is death by doctor prescribed drugs and misuse of drugs, running behind only heart disease and cancer as causes of death.

Some highlights:

* The latest advertising figures show the industry is now spending over $3 billion, doubling and tripling their advertising budgets. In 1991 the drug companies spent a measly $55 million. And you wondered why you were seeing more ads lately!

* Prescription drug advertising is now a major force in North American medicine, directly impacting consumer behaviour.

* Americans spend $500 billion on drugs. I know in Canada, provincial health spending is overwhelmed by increases drug costs - particularly drug costs associated with providing medical services to people suffering from chronic degenerative diseases. Those medical services account for 60% of their annual expenditures. I'm sure that's a similar total in the US, albeit one privatized to some extent..

* The average number of prescriptions per person has increased from 7.3 in 1992 to 10.4 per person in 2000.

* Doctors prescribe the brand name the patient names 70% of the time!

Dani Veracity has written an informative article for NewsTarget.com describing this startling trend in marketing prescription drugs. It's here at http://www.newstarget.com/010315.html I hope you get a chance to read it. Lot's of great information there.

Consumers are conditioned to want results and doctors are more easily manipulated than you think. She argues doctors are 'seduced' by the advertising. And so too is the media. Witness the power of the pharmaceutical advertisers as clearly illustrated by JAMA's publishing of a specious meta-study on antioxidant efficacy as mentioned in my previous post. Media bias and 'scientific independence' are skewed by their economic clout. This subtle type of bias sometimes becomes more blatant. Criticism of their products carries a price.For example, as Veracity notes in her article, a former editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) alleged that Pfizer, a major pharmaceutical company, had withdrawn $250,000 worth of advertising because an article appeared there had been critical of one of their new drugs.

Canada doesn't allow direct-to-consumer drug advertising. In fact, only the US and New Zealand allow this. It hardly matters though to us Canadians because we are exposed to virtually the same amount of US based adverising as the average American. Those regulations are in place throughout the world for good reasons and they have more to do with protecting the public interest than worrying about the profits of drug companies. I look forward to the day when the US authorities take their public responsibilites more seriously and regulate this type of advertising. I think the average person would agree if they knew how these products got into the marketplace in the first place. But that's another story.