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Advertising Prescription Drugs - Did You Know?
- Bayer Pharmaceuticals sold heroin as an over-the-counter remedy for coughs in the early 1900s.
- The US Food and Drug Administration did not begin to regulate prescription drug advertisements until Oct. 10, 1962 with the passage of the Kefauver Harris Amendments.
- Every $1.00 spent advertising prescription drugs is estimated to increase their retail sales by $4.20.
Advertising Prescription Drugs - An Overview
Should prescription drugs be advertised directly to consumers?
In 1906 the advertising of drugs was first regulated by the Federal Food and Drug Act. The Act gave the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to regulate drug labeling to prevent companies from making false claims about the contents or effects of medicines.
On June 25, 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (most recently amended on Dec. 31, 2004). This Act replaced the 1906 Act and brought the regulation of medication (in addition to the regulation of labeling) under the control of the FDA thereby spawning the prescription drug industry. The government restriction was imposed to protect consumers from drugs considered to be unsafe and to regulate drugs such as barbiturates and amphetamines.
On Oct. 10, 1962, the Kefauver Harris Amendments to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act transferred regulatory authority of prescription drug advertising from the Federal Trade Commission to the FDA. The Amendments required drug companies to provide information about side effects, contradictions, and effectiveness in all advertisements, including print and broadcast ads.
The US Food and Drug Administration continues to regulate prescription drug advertisements to ensure that the ads are not false or misleading in any way.
In Aug. 1999 the FDA issued guidance on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs through broadcast media when it released its industry guidance document Consumer-Directed Broadcast Advertisements. The 1999 guidance document described how companies could make "adequate provision" of prescription drug packaging information in broadcast media advertisements without directly disclosing the more detailed risk information that must accompany print advertisements. Between 1999 and 2000 it is estimated that direct-to-consumer advertising increased retail sales of the 25 most popular drug categories by 12%. The top five were antidepressants, antihyperlipidemics (cholesterol-lowering), proton pump inhibitors (acid reflux/heartburn), nasal sprays, and antihistamines. For every $1.00 spent on advertising, pharmaceutical retail sales increased by $4.20.
In 2007, the pharmaceutical industry was estimated to be spending $4.8 billion dollars a year advertising prescription drugs directly to the public.
In 2008, the sale of prescription drugs was a $291 billion dollar a year business in the United States.
Pro and Con Arguments - Should prescription drugs be advertised directly to consumers?
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PRO Advertising Prescription Drugs
- Prescription drug advertisements inform consumers about potential medical conditions they may have and about drugs that could help treat those conditions. A consumer better informed about medical issues is more likely to contact his/her doctor to discuss the condition or related drugs. These ads therefore provide a helpful public health service.
- Just because someone sees an ad on television doesn’t mean he/she will rush out to take a drug. Prescription drug consumers have access to physicians, pharmacists, product packaging, internet websites, medical literature and more to educate them about prescription products.
- Prescription drug advertisements lessen the stigma associated with many health conditions and thus make it easier for patients to acknowledge their potential health issues and reveal and discuss their health problems with physicians and others.
- Direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs is important and profitable for drug makers. They make over $4.00 for every $1.00 spent in direct to consumer advertising of such drugs. Drug makers – like any other legal company – have every right to make profits.
- Without the profits drug companies make from advertising prescription drugs to consumers, those companies would have less money to develop life-saving and life-improving medications.
- Brand name drug makers invest substantial amounts of money to research, test, acquire FDA approval, manufacture, and develop a market for specific prescription drugs. Generic drug competitors have none of those research and development (R&D) expenses. Advertising prescription drugs is necessary for brand name drug makers to recoup their R&D expenses and remain competitive against generic drug companies.
- Prescription drug advertisements are already regulated by the FDA to ensure that they are not false or misleading. Additional regulation is not necessary.
- Advertising prescription drugs uses ad agencies, video/photography equipment, graphic designers, public relations firms, copy editors, and a host of other professional services and equipment makers. Therefore, having such ads keeps people employed and helps the overall economy.
- Doctors, hospitals, and health care insurance providers can advertise their services directly to consumers. Fairness dictates that drug companies should be able to advertise their products directly to consumers as well.
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CON Advertising Prescription Drugs
- Direct to consumer prescription drug ads, like most advertisements, are intended to sell the product being advertised. Such ads use marketing tactics that manipulate, create false impressions, and otherwise mislead consumers instead of educating them about the drugs.
- Direct to consumer drug ads cause people to pick medicines based on the effectiveness of the advertisement rather than the effectiveness of the medication.
- Direct to consumer prescription drug advertisements cause patients to want and request medications that might be unnecessary or even harmful, thus leading to an over-medicated and unhealthy society.
- Pharmaceutical companies are for-profit business entities whose purpose is to make money. These companies advertise prescription drugs solely to increase their profits, not to improve public health.
- The money spent on advertising prescription drugs is passed on to consumers by raising the price of those drugs.
- Potentially harmful side effects and interactions are not sufficiently detailed in the drug advertisements. The average person cannot adequately research all the scientific studies done to evaluate the effectiveness of new drugs. Patients, therefore, find themselves requesting prescription drugs based on advertisements with little knowledge of all the relevant medical information.
- Patients seeing prescription drug ads can lose trust in doctors and the medical establishment when it seems that the medical community (including pharmaceutical companies) is more interested in taking their money than improving their health.
- Direct to consumer prescription drug ads harm public health by advocating drug use as a primary response to medical conditions that can often be remedied in other ways such as diet, exercise, stress reduction, and other preventative measures.
- Doctors may lose patients if they refuse to prescribe drugs that their patients have seen on television and now want. As a result, some physicians may sign prescription requests just to keep their patients happy and coming back, thereby becoming "rubber stamps" for patient requests.
- Patients may hear a prescription drug’s numerous side effects in an advertisement and forgo needed treatment out of fear without realizing that all medications have side effects. Patients need a balanced view of risks and benefits which cannot be presented in a short advertisement.
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Source: ProCon.org
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