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the influence of news media
influence of mass media in marketing
the influence of news media
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In Melody Peterson’s “Our Daily Meds” , the history of marketing and advertising in the pharmaceutical industry is explored. The first chapter of the book, entitled “Creating disease”, focuses on how major pharmaceutical companies successfully create new ailments that members of the public believe exist. According to Peterson, the success that these drug manufacturers have experienced can be attributed to the malleability of disease, the use of influencial people to promote new drugs, the marketing behind pills, and the use of media outlets. “There is no real definition for disease. ” This is a claim that Melody Petersen makes in her book. Most would define disease as an abnormality in regards to health. This seems logical, but it leads to the following question : what is “normal” ? What is the definition of “healthy” ? Asking major pharmaceutical companies these questions will most likely lead to the following conclusion: disease is malleable. In other words, it is open to a certain level of interpretation. According to Petersen, giant drug manufacturers consider disease to be a business. Thus, they create a market out of people’s physical or emotional shortcomings. In 1998, Pharmacia, a large American manufacturer of prescription drugs, …show more content…
Newspapers such as the New York Times published articles about “diseases” and their effects on everyday people. In the case of Detrol, reports of middle-aged people constantly having to empty their bladders lead many Americans to question their habits. Pharmacia used opinion polls and surveys as statistics, and several reporters used these surveys in their articles . Although the FDA warned Pharmacia that their claims did not have evidentiary support, the company continued to sell the disease and the drug to the American public. Companies such as Pharmacia were ruthless in their quest to sell their
Dr. John Abramson’s book Overdosed America debunks the myths about the excellence of American medicine. Abramson backs up this claim by closely examining research about medicine, closely examining the unpublished details submitted by drug manufacturers to the FDA, and discovering that the unpublished data does not coincide with the claims made about the safety and effectiveness of commonly used medicines. Abramsons purpose is to point out the flaws of the pharmaceutical industry in order to warn the readers about the credibility of the drugs they are buying. Given the critical yet technical language of the book, Abramson is writing to an audience that may include academic physicians as well as those who want to learn about the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry.
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing of pharmaceuticals has grown increasingly in the past decade. The American public views prescription drug advertising for a wide range of medical conditions, including high cholesterol, depression, allergies, and erectile dysfunction. The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the content of these advertisements. Critics also have taken the position that the advertisements garner unearned trust from the public, are misleading, and promote unnecessary use of prescription drugs for common problems associated with aging. Proponents counter that DTC ads help eliminate stigmas associated with certain medical conditions, give patients an active role in their health care management, and encourages the doctor/patient relationship. There have been calls for bans on DTC pharmaceutical advertising, but the practice is protected under a business’s right to free speech. Regulation changes, particularly requiring the FDA to pre-approve marketing campaigns before they are released to the public, may be one way to appease opponents, while protecting the rights of pharmaceutical manufacturers to advertise to the average American consumer.
"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in order to cure their ailments. For instance, they may present symptoms that are perfectly harmless, and lead potential citizens to believe that, because of these symptoms, they are "sick" and in need of medication. In some instances, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States misleads both the public and medical professionals by participating in acts of both deceptive marketing practices and bribery, and therefore does not act within the best interests of the consumers.
First, when viewing DTC prescription drug ads, the public cannot understand the wording used to describe the drugs. Because of this, the producers of these ads are able to manipulate the drug’s effects to sway people into buying them. According to the article, 74% of surveyed doctors believe that the benefits expressed in prescription drug ads are embellished (paragraph 5). This inaccurate information causes patients to be misinformed as to the effects of the drug. Opposingly, 48% of doctors state that these ads inform and educate patients about DTC prescription drugs (paragraph 6). The percentages
DTC advertisements aim to persuade that their possibly less effective drugs work better than other drugs rather than to inform consumers of correct information about drugs. The reason that pharmaceutical companies abuse the power of DTC advertising is because the pharmaceutical industry does not have a strong ethical code for advertising; their sales are so obsessed with profits. To solve this problem, policy makers should prohibit indiscreet DTC advertisements on air and fund more informative services about new drugs so that patients could make clever
In 1985, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) passed a ruling to allow direct marketing to consumers as long as the pharmaceutical companies included warnings about possible side effects and other dangers. This change allowed for print-based marketing such as magazines, but in 1997, the FDA lessened the requirement for detailed warnings. Furthermore, the FDA ruled that TV ads containing only the main dangers of the drug were permissible, and this resulted in an inundation of the direct-to-consumer advertising on television. “One study showed that for each dollar of direct-to-consumer advertising on TV by the pharmaceutical company during 1999-2000 resulted in a return of $4.20 for each dollar spent. By 2005, the pharmaceutical industry spent over one billion on TV ads” (DeGeorge 319). Based on these facts, the advertising is paying off for these large pharmaceutical companies.
Why do consumers purchase specific drugs for various ailments, sicknesses or diseases they might have? Why do physicians prescribe certain drugs over competitive drugs that may be available to the public? Why is it that most of us can easily name specific drugs that fit the many ailments of today’s society? On the surface the answer might be as simple as good TV advertising or radio commercials or even internet adds. The truth of matter is the major pharmaceutical manufacturers own the patents on these drugs and this gives them all of the marketing budget and muscle they need to promote the drug and control the pricing. The incentives for larger pharmaceutical companies are very enticing and as a result, they don’t mind spending the time in clinical trials and patent courts to get their drugs approved. Some will even get patents on the process by which the drug is manufactured, ensuring that no competitor can steal the drug or the process. This protects their large financial investment and nearly guarantees a large return for their investors. Many consumer rights groups claim this is nothing more than legalizing monopolies for the biggest manufacturers.
Appropriately, this motion picture correctly illustrates the amount of work, time, and money that actually goes into developing a medical innovation. In addition, this movie acts as a solid example of the grueling path one must take for permission in releasing a medical innovation to the public. Writing for the journal The Scientist, Jef Akst stated that the film acted as a good depiction of the “hard to swallow fiscal issues of drug development” (thescientist). However, this painfully hard process exists for good reasons; they must weed out the ideas that can not be safely practiced in modern society. Also, the regulations ensure that each innovation, whether drug, therapy, or procedure, will benefit the consumer more than the side effects could harm them. Moreover, the benefits of the innovations, as previously mentioned, must outweigh the costs for the patient and practicer for maximum
Interpersonal communication is described by Schiavo as a multi-faceted influenced concept. With cultural, community and literacy on the forefront of consideration, these are the means influencing perceived information (Schiavo, 2007). The perception of information can be altered by technology-mediated communication. The article I choose to review was designed to look at the direct to consumer product- specific television prescription drug advertisements during 2001.As the public spends numerous hours viewing television and is easily influenced with the numerous advertisements. Many of the drug advertisements have intent to effect health and specific diagnostic awareness. The current direction of health communication is that of empowerment of the rights of patients (Schiavo, 2007).
Sharpe, Katherine. “Medication: The Smart-pill Oversell.” Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science. Nature Publishing Group. 12 Feb. 2014. Web. 7 March 2014.
The time and cost it takes to put a drug through the trials as well as the FDA’s regulations make the rarely successful process a huge commitment for these drug companies. Next, the author compares the cost of drugs to the amount of lawsuits the companies receive. There are many risks to mass-producing drugs and with the FDA siding with Public Safety, the author states that drug companies can lose a lot of money. This is because the FDA is not willing to take any risks in approving drugs due to the repercussions being so severe, The final idea the author discusses is the process of research itself. The drug companies revenue is put towards developing new drugs that will help the public. This can be a very costly process which is why a lot of money is needed to support the research. Epstein’s purpose in writing this article is to defend the rising costs of pharmaceutical drugs in order to get people to understand the drug companies point of view and contributions to society. This article can be considered credible because it comes from Opposing Viewpoints in Context. This is a very reliable database for gathering
Prescription drug advertising is a normal part of living in the United States. Considering what people can learn through advertising in society is almost unreal. The US population have encountered drug advertisements dating back to the early 1900’s. From heroin to aspirin and everything in between were at once listed to be advertised. Fast forward to today, and pharmaceutical companies continue to use high amounts of prescription drugs advertisements. People right now are seeing the effects that these advertisements have in negative ways, but also at the same time creating benefits in society.
Direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs has been legal in the United States since 1985, but exploded in 1997 when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relaxed the rules regarding disclosure of side-effects in infomercials (Calfee, 2002). Since that time the in...
Medicalization is defined as the gradual social formation whereby medicine comes to exercise authority over areas of life that were not previously considered medical. Oftentimes, this means a process by which problems, viewed historically as simply socially deviant, become illnesses. Medicalization can occur with both mental issues, such as ADHD and grief, and physical issues, such as erectile dysfunction and fatness. One of the largest problems with medicalization is the construction of these diseases largely for the profit of the pharmaceutical industry. The gradual widening of medical categories to include more people, a concept known as diagnostic bracket creep, enables medical industries to profit off of those who are “sick.” When using
On Chapter 7, Frances describes ways the diagnostic inflation can be tamed. He stated, “We are spending a fortune fighting the losing war against illegal drugs, while barely lifting a finger to fight an easily winnable war against the misuse of legal grips”(p. 211). Before reading this book, I would have never imagined that we had a problem with people being prescribed an excessive amount of drugs they do not need. I agreed with Frances when he mentioned ways big pharma could be tamed such as reducing or removing advertisements on televisions, magazines or internet. Advertisements are very powerful and pharmaceutical companies have snuck their way into the homes of individuals. While I was reading France’s ideas, I agreed with a lot of them, but I felt that the people are still