AMA calls for limits on drug ads

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http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/05/09/ama_calls_for_limits_on_drug_ads/

Drug makers, including Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co., have deceptively marketed their products to the public, showing the need to limit drug advertisements, lawmakers and the American Medical Association said.

more stories like thisA moratorium should be placed on ads for newly approved drugs until doctors are educated and regulators have signed off on the messages, the medical association, said yesterday at a House subcommittee hearing on drug advertising. Representative Bart Stupak said Congress should consider new restrictions on ads.

Drug makers spent $5.4 billion last year on direct-to-consumer, or DTC, advertising, according to market research firm Nielsen Monitor-Plus. That's a fivefold increase in the decade since rules about the disclosures required in television ads were changed, allowing drug makers to more easily air commercials. Lawmakers said the ads gloss over risks and may cause overprescribing of expensive medicines.

"Congress needs to decide whether the US should continue to be one of two countries in the world that allow DTC ads, and if we continue to allow such advertising, whether any further limits to DTC ads should be required," said Stupak, a Michigan Democrat and head of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on oversight and investigations. "It appears that we need to enforce significant restrictions on DTC ads."