Are drugs ads hazardous to your health?

Herb Weisbaum • Profile • E-mail

If you watched TV, read a newspaper, or flipped through a magazine this week, there’s a very good chance you saw a few advertisements for prescription drugs. They’re hard to miss. It’s not uncommon for a 30-minute network newscast to have four or five drug commercials.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers spend $5 billion dollars a year to market prescription drugs directly to American consumers.

According to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the goal of these ads is to make patients and doctors better partners by giving them “accurate information about disease and treatment options.” PhRMA says this brings patients into their doctor’s offices “and starts important doctor-patient conversations about health that might otherwise not have happened.”

That may be. But these ads also move product. According to a November 2006 GAO report, direct-to-consumer advertising “has contributed to increased drug spending and utilization.” The report cites a study of 64 drugs that found a median increase in sales of $2.20 for every dollar spent on ads targeted at consumers.

This is a big concern to many in the medical community. One doctor I spoke to referred to this as “America’s other drug problem.”

“Why we would trust a for-profit industry to have the public health at heart is really beyond me,” says Peter Lurie, deputy director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen. “It’s an attempt to turn the patient into an advertising representative for the drug company and to force the doctor to prescribe a drug that he or she would otherwise not prescribe.”

The TV ads are clever and often emotionally charged. Unlike real life, they always have a happy ending. Yes there are possible side effects, but after taking the medicine the person in the ad always feels better and looks happier. The clear implication is this could be you if you “just ask your doctor” about that drug.

Mixed feelings According to a recently released national public opinion poll 68 percent of the adults in the U.S. think there are too many ads for prescription drugs on TV. And yet, these ads are viewed positively by most people. About two-thirds agreed with the statement that these ads “educate them about available treatments and encourage people to get help for medical conditions they might not have been aware of.” “The public has very mixed feelings about direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising,” says Molly Ann Brodie, Vice President of Public Opinion and Medical Research at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“The way it’s presented in the ads, this drug will transform your life,” says Dr. Peter McGough, a family physician with the University of Washington’s School of Medicine. “Patients will literally come in with ads and say, ‘I want this drug.’ ”

According to a recently released survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Harvard Medical School and USA Today, a third of the adults responding said they talked to their doctor about a drug they had seen advertised. Of this group, 44 percent said they got a prescription for that drug, 88 percent got a prescription for some type of drug.

This is what worries consumer groups – patients asking for drugs that are sometimes inappropriate for them or not the best choice for their condition.

“Sometimes the ads can serve a useful purpose in educating people about treatments they might not have known about, says Gail Shearer, Director of Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs. “But overall, this is harmful in terms of patient safety and information.” Shearer says many people pay very high prices for highly-promoted medications when there are alternatives “that are equally effective, equally safe, and are much more affordable.”

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