The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) changed their policies concerning direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs over ten years ago, in 1997. The United States and New Zealand are the only countries that allow DTCA to occur for marketing of pharmaceuticals. The issue of DTCA around prescription drugs is a controversy of ethical proportions. The risk factors of concern are misuse and over prescribed medications due to patient and physician pressures, and the risk of driving up drug expenses. Despite the controversy, the spending on DTCA had drastically increased since the FDA provided a more lax regulation in their policies. Spending on direct-to-consumer advertising increased by 212 percent between 1996 and 2000. (1) The process of marketing to consumers or patients uses the methods of medical journals, free samples, and DTCA (Television, magazine advertisements, product placement, etc).
1. Physicians
The first aspect of advertising to consumers with prescription drugs starts at the physicians. Physicians are the first direct link between a patient/consumer and their drug company. It is not unheard of to enter a doctor’s office and discover drug or company advertisements. Doctors are encouraged to offer free samples of medications and with consent of certain patients they are to offer patients experimental drugs to push them into the market. Physicians are under the influence of sale representatives from drug companies to encourage the physician to push their medications. Often doctors are sought as speakers and offered a hefty sum for their speeches. ProPublica published a searchable database of doctors who have taken money from seven drug companies in the past two years. The database features over 17,000 doctors, m...
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...he market in DTCA focuses on the top 20 prescribed medications that typically treat chronic diseases and are new to the pharmaceutical market. For every additional dollar spent on DTCA, an additional $4.20 in sales was yielded. (5) The cost of marketing and advertising a prescription drug yields results that are extremely favorable in the pharmaceutical world.
Almost a third of adults say that they have spoken to their doctor about a drug they saw advertised on television and forty-four percent of those patients were prescribed the medication.(6) Pharmaceutical companies market their drugs in the most favorable light, oftentimes mitigating rare but significant side effects.(7) Most provide typical product information, along with vague descriptions of benefits; however, significantly fewer provide the ―prevalence of, risk factors for, or causes of the condition.(7)
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.
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 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. In America today, many people are in need of medical help. In fact,the Federal Trade Commission estimates that 75% of the population complain of physical problems (Federal Trade Commission 9). They complain, for example, of fatigue, colds, headaches, and countless other "ailments." When these symptoms strike, 65% purchase over-the-counter, or OTC, drugs.
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
...pecially with the use of DTC advertising, to such a wide range of afflictions greatly increased their consumer base, but one of them proved to be deadly. In 1999, four years after Lilly sent study results to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration showing Zyprexa didn’t alleviate dementia symptoms in older patients, it began marketing the drug to those very people, according to documents unsealed in insurer suits against the company for overpayment.(Applbaum, 248). Soon after it began to be used in those suffering from dementia, there were studies produces that showed an increase in death rate among elderly patients taking Zyprexa. In January of 2009, Eli Lilly and Company, who produced the drug, ended up settling the lawsuit and agreed to pay $1.415 billion which was one of the biggest corporate settlements in the history of pharmaceutical companies (Applbaum, 237).
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
since the FDA allowed companies to advertise directly to consumers we saw an increase in
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.
In America, it has become a battle to earn a high paying job to cope with the expenses of a typical American. It has become even more of a battle for some people to afford medical prescriptions to keep healthy. Health becomes a crucial issue when discussed among people. No matter what, at one point or another, everyone is going to stand as a victim of the pharmaceutical industry. The bottom line is Americans are paying excessive amounts of money for medical prescriptions. Health-Care spending in the U.S. rose a stunning 9.3% in 2002, which is the greatest increase for the past eleven years. (Steele 46) Many pharmaceutical companies are robbing their clients by charging extreme rates for their products.
Prescription drug prices rose three times faster than inflation in the decade between 1981 and 1991, making the pharmaceutical industry the nation's most profitable business. Prescription drugs even exceeded the rapidly rising inflation rate for all other medical services. They now represent at least 10% of all the medical costs in the United States.1
Per capita spending on prescription drugs in America is far greater than any other country. Kesselheim goes on to say that this is a natural result of America’s free market approach to healthcare resulting in monopolies. These healthcare monopolies are not held accountable for their high drug prices. The claims that these costs can be justified through research and development is rubbish, according to
Office, U. A. (2002). Prescription drugs: FDA oversight of direct-to-consumeradvertising has limitations (GAO-3-177). Washington, D.C.
It is also easy to see the American people’s infatuation with drugs by simply looking at our current number of prescriptions filled at pharmacies annually. An active data table hosted by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation states that about four billion prescriptions are filled annually (Kaiser). This is enough prescriptions for every person in the country, children and adults, to have twelve each. Once a person is on a drug, it is often hailed as an immediate fix to the problem, but many don’t think or just don’t care about the long-term side effects it could hold.
Advertising for Pharmaceutical products in the United Kingdom and the United States triggered frequent examination included integrated marketing communication, How they affect the audience, Social Responsibilities influence by the Advertising Standard Authority, UK, Impact of the advertisement towards the cultural in Malaysia, Globalization and Ethical Issues.
In the 1990s direct marketing became the most important tool in the mix because technology had enabled a form of communication by appealing directly to the target customer. This change led to new media formats, and the subsequent development of the Internet. Digital technologies have accelerated change in the marketing communications