Prescription Drug Ads Under Fire for Being Unethical
For over a decade, pharmacists have been advertising their products directly to consumers. There are laws that require drug ads to have proper disclaimers about the risks of their products within the ad; not many are complying with these rules.
There are attempts being made to extend the six-month moratorium to two years. The purpose of the six-month waiting period is to allow some time for physicians to become familiar with the new drugs. Many pharmaceutical companies do not abide by this rule because of the fear of falling behind in competition. You may notice that there are usually multiple ads for different drugs that promise the same thing.
In result to incompliance with the moratorium and placing improper disclaimers in ads and on the drugs themselves have put people’s lives at risk. Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan is one of the individuals concerned about misleading drug ads. It gets a little more personal for him because of what recently happened with his 83-year-old father. Stupak’s father was diagnosed with having low red blood cell counts. He later saw a Procrit drug ad on television that targeted elders with anemia, proclaiming to help liven them up (those with anemia tend to feel tired all of the time) – ads even showed before and after results of seniors who use the drug – dramatized of course.
Now, the problem with this is that the disclaimers were not on the ad or the box of the drug – it turns out that those who have kidney problems could be at risk of heart failure when using the drug. Stupak’s father, who had kidney problems, was using high dosage injections of the drug, which in turn caused him to be rushed to the emergency room after a mild heart attack.
What makes it worse is that doctors that observed him told him to continue using the prescription drug – if doctors knew more about the drug, this would have never happened.
There are billions of dollars spent on television drug ads each year. To be exact:
• $5 billion was spent in 2004
• $4.65 billion was spent in 2005
• $5.29 billion was spent in 2006
An average of 16 hours of prescription drug ads are aired each year.
Dominick Frosch, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, gave a study on prescription drug ads. These are some of the problems that were found:
• Out of all the ads aired on TV, only ¼ of them mentioned risk factors for the problem being treated by the drug.
• No ads informed viewers of lifestyle changes, such as exercising and dieting along with taking cholesterol pills. About 1/5 of the ads did inform viewers of life changes as an addition with taking the drug.
• ¼ of the ads on air did mention how uncommon or common the illness it treats is.
• Many unrealistic ads were portrayed, showing individuals quickly getting better and enjoying life again.
Here are some ads that were removed due to serious side effects and/or have had FDA action:
• Celebrex
• Fosamax
• Crestor
• Paxil
• Plavix
• Procrit – the drug Stupak’s father was using.
• Vioxx
• Zelnorm
• Zyprexa
photo credit: neoliminal
