As TV Drug Ads Increase, So Do Concerns

HealthDay News
By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

SUNDAY, Oct. 4 (HealthDay News) -- You can't channel surf at all these days without stumbling across drug advertisements featuring happy people, sunny days, vague descriptions and a quickly mumbled list of side effects.

If you think you're seeing more of these ads than ever before, you're right.

The amount of money spent by pharmaceutical companies on direct-to-consumer advertising more than tripled between 1997 and 2005, growing from $1.3 billion to $4.2 billion since restrictions governing drug ads were relaxed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to the California Public Interest Research Group, a public advocacy group nicknamed CalPIRG.

Only the United States and New Zealand allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise their medications directly to consumers, according to the FDA.

Doctors and patient advocates say the companies are getting good returns on their investment. Spending on prescription drugs has grown faster than any other type of health-care spending in the United States. "If you just look at the number of prescriptions issued since restrictions have lifted, they've definitely gone up," said Michael Russo, a health-care advocate for CalPIRG.

However, there is concern in the medical community that the drug ads could be damaging to both patients and the health-care system.

"I think the advertisements can serve a useful purpose by making people aware of products available to them," said Dominick L. Frosch, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. "We want people to make informed decisions so they understand the specific risks and benefits of following a certain treatment.

"But the benefit information in these ads is often described in vague, general and emotionally driven terms, and the risk information also is not presented in a very helpful way," Frosch said. "The current format of the ads doesn't do a very good job of making sure patients are well-informed."

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Someone should put an end to Big Pharma's disease-du-jour advertising during EVERY commercial break.



[edit on 4-10-2009 by GoldenFleece]

Man, I was playing GTA4 earlier and I heard the funniest thing about the pharmaceutical industry on the in game radio. If I can find a transcript online I will edit it in. But it's pretty hilarious, the gist of it being, ask your doctor for the pills you see on TV, what it DOES is irrelevant, ASK YOUR DOCTOR FOR IT. So aggressively, very good satire that.

Anyway so yeah, it's out of control, but it just seems like one of those things that is too big to stop now. They make so much money and have so many beneficial (to them) laws in place.

Ohhhhhh you better believe I competely agree, Please, Please outlaw these drug ads. Some are quite funny the first time, compltely annoying the 1 billionth time. Thy tell you almost nothing about what they are for, but happily tell you what symptoms you should look for; unfortunatly those symptoms are the same for several problems. They quickly rush through all the side effects.

Since when have we become a society that tells our Doctor what we should be taking. That should be up to the doctor to tell you of the different medicatons, sde effects, and recommendations he/she feels would work for your situation. The meds that you take sould be a mutual understanding and agreement between patient and doctor, not tv ad pusher and emotion.

"Prescription pills mingling in the mezzanine"

That is the #1 (at least in the top 5) domestic problem with our country.

I am a pot-smoker (nothing else, not drinking, not even Ibuprofen), and when ever I hear someone call my 100% naturally grown herbs a drug, my retort is "If you want drugs, go to a doctor. They give the hardest dope!".

They advertise some seriously heavy drugs on TV and in the prints... it's a damned shame. I can call my doctor right now, telling him that I have tooth pains, knowing that tomorrow I'll have some synthetic heroin (vicodin, etc) to destroy my system with. Or I can tell him that I can't sleep, and get a drug that might make me kill my wife with no recollection of the event.

My theory: zombies are easier to maintain, than sheep.

It really is getting ridiculous. All the Encyte and Viagra and Cialis commercials are SO dang annoying. Then I saw one for a prescription medicine to grow your eyelashes!! I thought it was a joke at first but it's for real.

Gee, could this be the reason the mainstream media is pushing junk science and the swine flu vaccine? Maybe they don't want to piss off their biggest advertisers? Maybe there is a little reward in it for them in it at the end of the day - like a promise for more advertising revenue.

I'd rather smoke crack than put into my body the toxic poison these people are peddling.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by SphinxMontreal]

Originally posted by SphinxMontreal
Gee, could this be the reason the mainstream media is pushing junk science and the swine flu vaccine? Maybe they don't want to piss off their biggest advertisers? Maybe there is a little reward in it for them in it at the end of the day - like a promise for more advertising revenue.

I'd rather smoke crack than put into my body the toxic poison these people are peddling.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by SphinxMontreal]

Why smoke heroin when you can take synthetic heroin in pill form?!

Sure, it's just as dangerous... but it's not illegal!

the doctors bear a big chunk of the responsibility on this one, the drug companies can put as many advertisements on TV as they want but the responsibility for what is prescribed is not the patients or the drug companies, it's the doctors.

what's the point in requiring prescriptions if the doctors allow the patients to dictate the medications being prescribed to them?