Drug Marketing
Direct-to-consumer marketing of prescription drugs should be prohibited.
Pharmaceutical 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
Removal of Consumer Advocate From Dec. 8 Advisory Committee Meeting Is Bad Policy
Sidney Wolfe | December 6th, 2011
Letter on Regulation of Direct-to-Consumer Marketing
Sidney Wolfe and Joan Levin | June 28th, 2010
Article in JLME: DTC Advertising Harms Patients and Should Be Tightly Regulated
Peter Lurie | September 1st, 2009
39 Health & Seniors Groups Call on Congress to End to DTC Prescription Drug Ads
Gary Ruskin | May 24th, 2006
StopDrugAds.org: A New Website Against DTC Prescription Drug Advertising
Gary Ruskin | January 23rd, 2006
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
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External Links
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
ACP/ASIM Policy Statement on Direct to Consumer Advertising for Prescription Drugs
Am. Coll. of Physicians/Am. Soc. Int. Medicine | October 9, 1998
Feminists Challenge Unethical Marketing by Prescription Drug Companies
Judy Norsigian | March, 2001
How Direct to Consumer Advertising Is Putting the Squeeze on Physicians
Phyllis Maguire, ACP/ASIM Observer | March, 1999
Testimony on Direct-to-Consumer Promotion of Prescription Drugs
Cindy Pearson, Nat'l Womens Health Network | October 19, 1995
Providing Presecription Medicine Information to Consumers: Is There a Role for Direct to Consumer Promotion
Health Action International | January 10, 2002
Direct-to-Consumer Advertising -- Education or Emotion Promotion
Sidney M. Wolfe MD, New England J. Medicine | February 14, 2002
Essential Action's page on the FDA and Commercial Speech Protections
Essential Action |
Testimony on Direct to Consumer Advertising
Sidney M. Wolfe MD, Public Citizen | July 24, 2001
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
The Educational Value of Consumer-Targeted Prescription Drug Print Advertising
Robert Bell, Michael Wilkes, Richard Kravitz | December, 2000
FDA Oversight of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising Has Limitations
US General Accounting Office (GAO) | October, 2002
America's Other Drug Problem: How the Drug Industry Distorts Medicine and Politics
Arnold Relman & Marcia Angell, New Republic
Must See TV
Michael Shaw, BAGnews | September 18, 2003
Warning letters to pharmaceutical companies
Food and Drug Administration |
Floor statement on prescription drug advertising
Senator Bill Frist | July 1st, 2005 |