Should pharmaceutical companies be allowed ANY time on the air?

[Just Me]

My short, sweet answer is "no".

I offer no explanation.

[Fescue4u]

1. My answer is yes.

1st ammendment.

nuff said.

[TreasonousBastard]

13. There has always been a distinction between...

1st amendment speech and "commercial speech" which can be heavily regulated.

Even though things have been loosened a bit, advertisers still have rules that the rest of us don't have to abide by.

Note that the 1st amendment didn't stop cigarette and liquor ads from being banned.

[Just Me]

23. YIKES!!! You equate "sale of goods" with 1st Amendment protections?

What the hell country do you live in?

}( Hey, sweetheart,...I've got a fabulous "pill" that will fix your life!!! Just pay me several thousand dollars to get this fabulous "pill".

Lesson: the protection of free speech was never intended to apply to predatory profitteers; but rather to shield against aggressors.

Only an anarchist could interpret the 1st Amendment in such a way.

I definitely do NOT believe humanity could possibly operate in a zone of anarchy.

[Fescue4u]

24. Anarchist

Interesting.

I associate freedom of speech with freedom. Not Anarchy.

[Massacure]

2. No. Don't ask me how to prove that it doesn't violate the 1st though.

[democracyindanger]

3. There are limits to the 1st Amendment

The ol' shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

Pharma companies pushing prescription drugs in advertising falls in that category, IMO.

[Hello_Kitty]

4. Didn't there used to be a prohibition against certain professions

Such as medicine and law advertising at all? Seems to me there has been a denigration of those diciplines since that relented. So I'm with you on that. It's like Bill Maher said in his comedy routine, in reference to TV ads exhorting viewers to "ask your doctor" about certian medications. The doctor is supposed to tell you what drugs you need. When you tell him, he's no longer a doctor, he's a dealer.

[PA Democrat]

5. The US is only one of two developed countries that allow direct consumer

marketing by the drug companies. I believe that New Zealand is the only other country that does.

Could it be that the rest of the developed world is on to something? Like maybe the costs of all those frigging commercial drive up the price of drugs.

[DefenseLawyer]

6. I would be interested to know

if pharmaceutical companies advertise in Canada like they do here in the United States?

[CHIMO]

16. No

Although there are advertisements for Viagra type drugs but I don't think any trade names are mentioned. ie. feel good see your doctor type. Hardly watch TV.

[Liberal Veteran]

7. Only for non-prescription medications.

The prescription drug commercials don't do an adequate job of educating people to justify their expense and generally push higher priced products that often have no discernable benefit over older medications for the same indication.

[Fovea]

8. Which also begs the question

for others whose products do not have a private consumer.

For example, Boeing, General Dynamics, and other military contractors.
These advertisements are really not for a product, but for a political policy.

[napi21]

9. NO!!! It used to be drug companies or lawyers could advertise on TV

or radio. I think it was our friend Reagan who changed that too! Shrub is wondering why the law suits have increased to such a rate, and why the cost of drugs have gone crazy? I can tell him! ADVERTISING!!!! There is no reason in the world you should have to tell your doctor what drug you want! There is also no reason for anybody to contact one of the charlatan lawyers who advertise on TV. Ask any legitimate lawyer. They don't run ads! The ones who do are gaming the system!

[CAG]

10. Direct-to-consumer advertising should not be allowed

for prescription drugs. They can have goody-goody industry ads saying how wonderful their companies are, but not specifically for prescription drugs. Make no mistake, when the drug companies got the go-ahead for DTC advertising, they weren't doing to rally around the first amendment, it was to get their already-obscene profit margins of 8-10% industry-wide to the incredibly-obscene 20% where it stands today.

As far as first amendment, even before DTC and still today, the FDA and FTC restricts what a drug company can and can't say about their drug. They can only repeat information from the FDA-approved package insert (which makes one wonder why they need to spend a third of their revenues on marketing, wink-wink, nudge-nudge). I speak with them every week, and believe me, they DON'T stick to the package insert.

The bottom line is its ALL propaganda for their greed-stricken obscene profit margins. Their claim that DTC provides education for the public should be clearly scoffed at as an offensive joke.

[PA Democrat]

11. The drugs advertised are often newer "me too" drugs

that are no more effective than their predecessors, but are more expensive. Nexium was heavily advertised when it came out, but has been found to be no more effective than its predecessor, Prilosec. But Prilosec was available OTC for a fraction of the cost of Nexium. The commercials create an artificial demand for a product that has a much higher profit margin.



<snip>

"The study found that Americans in Sacremento were twice as likely as people in Vancouver to ask for new —and often costly— brand name drugs.

"Newer does not equal better. Many of the drugs released on the market are what are called 'me too' drugs. They're very similar to what already exists," Mintzes said.


"They feel hard done by if you say the really tough word: No"
Vancouver family physician, Dr. John Mail
The study also found that those who asked for a specific drug they'd seen advertised got it almost 75 per cent of the time."

http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/health/directads/

[Warpy]

12. The ethics of pushing prescription drugs directly to people

who may or may not need them but who can't prescribe them for themselves are appalling. It causes healthy people to imagine they have illnesses they don't have (since so many of these drugs describe "new and different uses" in such general terms that most of us fit the profile) and to clamor for the drugs when they visit their physicians.

The docs, ever mindful of the admonition "do no harm" assume that the drugs are probably safe and write out a scrip just to make the noise stop, hoping the person won't notice any discernable difference and just stop the drug.

That means a lot of people are getting medicated when they don't need to be, that insurance companies are getting gigged for expensive drugs they really don't need to be paying for, and that drug company profits are at an all time high, 15% or more.

Advertise those drugs to physicians, sure. Shoot, even give them company logo ball point pens. Just stop advertising them to the people who don't have the skills to diagnose anything, let alone self prescribe.

[CAG]

14. to expand on this....

direct-to-consumer advertising for any prescription drug is terrible enough, but what for a company to have the gall to advertise for very specific, often clinic-administered injectable products is perhaps the most troubling. The Procrit (injectable drug for anemia in cancer and kidney disease patients) and neupogen (injectable drug for low white counts in cancer patients) ads are just frankly unacceptable on any level.

[Sgent]

17. I have mixed feelings

Drugs like Claritin and the like were major improvements over OTC allergy medications, and the companies wanted to let people know about them. I really don't have a problem with that.

For drugs like Lipitor, I think advertising a specific brand is bad news, but advertising encoraging people to "know their number" is probably ok.

For drugs like procrit, I don't think they should be advertised at all.

There remains a first ammendment issue -- commericial speech can be regulated (unlike political speech); however, its not cut and dry. Remember, cigaretts and liquor are not regulated -- ads have been volunteerialy pulled by the manufactorer. Drugs were regulated quite heavily with no DTC allowed until about 15-20 years ago, when the FDA changed the rules. I don't know that if they changed it back, that a successful court challenge wouldn't prevail.

[Warpy]

18. Claritin is now OTC and requires no prescription

People who are sneezing can walk into any drug store and pick it up.

That isn't true for prescription medications.

All drugs have side effects. All drugs are targeted poisons.

Taking ANY drug when you don't need it is a bad ideal. Being fooled into thinking you need it when you don't is appalling.

No prescription medication should be advertised directly to patients.

None.

Not ever.

[Sgent]

21. I realize claritin is OTC

I was referring to when Claritin first came out -- I personally believe that DTC advertising was appropriate in that scenerio. Claritin (and the me-toos) were a new class of drug which replaced about 40 years of OTC medications, were sigularly effective, and treated a problem that had traditionally been handled by OTC medicines.

In this case, I think its ok for drug companies to advertise.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

15. A question. Is this one of the reasons

that our prescription drugs are so expensive? TV ad space isn't cheap.

[CAG]

19. Of course it is

The drug companies spend their money this way, in general...

20-25% research
20% administration
10-20% production
20-25% marketing
20% pure profit (all of the non-drug company industries of the free world make around 3-6% profit margin, mind you)

Consider if one were to cut marketing, which has no place in influencing the medical profession or the general public which drugs to prescribe or ingest, and bring profit margin down to a "reasonable" level. There's a third of the costs cut, easily.

The only reason to spend money on advertising is because it works (as successful propaganda to physicians and now, thanks to the big pharma lobby, the general public); why else would they be spending the money?

[Warpy]

20. Drug companies spend two dollars on advertising for every dollar

they spend on research and development, even though they claim their drugs are expensive because of the R&D cause.

That means two thirds of the cost of any brand name drug has got to be the advertising budget, and most of that budget is eaten up by television adverts, with only a relatively small portion going to print ads in magazines and online.

That's another reason the ethics here are appalling.

[northamericancitizen]

22. Reading all the posts I realize (again) how Canada is different to the US

Lately there was a documentary on RDI (french canadian section of CBC) about the increase of prescription given to patients. The provincial governments across the country are facing an enormous increase in the amount of $ they have to dish out cause of medications.

In the documentary, they mentioned the fact that even thou Canadian broadcaster don't have nearly as much pub about meds, a lot of Canadians can see those ads on the American channels. With the same consequences: "I feel bad, this pill seems to be what I need, etc. etc.

Should all those ads be banned ? I am not sure. What I would like to see is more ads about prevention. More ads educating people about specific ailments and what type of specific remedies could help. Without the brand names.

Lise