AMA calls for limits on drug ads

[Celebration]

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."

[katmondoo]

1. Lunesta $166.00

Most insurance will not cover a sleeping medicine

[kdmorris]

2. Good!!

Those ads are so generic that everyone thinks they have every disease and go clamoring to their doctor for the latest drug.

And... they add the prices of all those fancy ads... the flying butterflies, etc... right on to the price of the damned drug.

I'm not saying doctors are perfect. I've had my share of real jerks, but having a bunch of idiots trying to diagnose themselves leads to a bunch of idiots on 27 different drugs when they don't need them.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. I've always felt uncomfortable

with drug companies advertising their products. I fear that they are doing that so that patients will over-rule their own doctors when it comes to care. Or they'll wonder why Doc doesn't know that much about the newest "wonder drug" advertised on TV. So many foolishly assume that to be advertised, a product must have been tested and found to be safe and that anyone administering it has been trained in its use (this in regards to drugs). Personally, if it is advertised on TV, I tend NOT to buy it. But I know I'm not the typical consumer.

[varkam]

4. K&R

I've long thought that one of the major problems with health care and pharmaceutical companies is DTC advertising. It is costly, thereby driving up the operating budget of Pharmas and increasing the cost of drugs, and it doesn't really do anything to inform the public, either.

[varkam]

5. dupe

[Warpy]

6. I can't begin to describe how unethical it is

to pitch targeted poisons to people who are unqualified to diagnose their conditions or prescribe those medicines.

Allowing direct advertising was one of the worst things Congress has done to the health of the country.