Direct-to-Consumer Drug Advertising
Drug ads in spotlight -”off-label” use reaches new heights
Is pharma’s prime-time play finally being censored?
The headline screamed: Direct-to-Consumer Drug Ads Come Under Scrutiny
No, could it really be? Are the Feds finally stepping up to regulate (or eliminate) that pernicious prime-time TV claptrap that encourages people to self-diagnose disease, implies rosy, harmless solutions, and always closes with the familiar “Ask your doctor about” catchphrase?
Maybe. And I can hardly believe it. A recent article in HealthDay News (but also posted on Yahoo and other sources) revealed that federal health officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration held hearings in November to determine whether the agency should revise its policies toward DTC (direct to consumer) drug advertising. The emphasis is mostly on those slick TV ads that seem to promise the world, and spur folks to ask for drugs by name.
I’ve written about DTC ads before – in fact, I’ve railed more or less steadily against them ever since 1997, when the FDA relaxed restrictions on broadcast drug advertising. Since then, Big Pharma’s advertising expenditures have ballooned to $4 billion a year. This policy has been money in the bank for drug makers, too. The killer painkiller Vioxx is a great example of this: Merck parlayed around $160 million per year on Vioxx ads into sales of about $2.5 billion annually. That’s roughly 1300 times return on investment
How effective are these ads? Consider:
- Duke University research concluded that 80% of those questioned could clearly remember what the advertised drug was intended to treat, but only 20% could describe any of the side effects disclosed in the ad.
- A Prevention magazine study concluded that 65 million people have talked to a doctor as a direct result of DTC ads – 29 million of these discussing a condition for the FIRST TIME.
Think drug ads aren’t getting their message out and convincing people to self-diagnose?
Of course, I won’t believe the FDA would cut off their own tax-and-approval-fee revenue stream so drastically as to outlaw TV drug ads once again. I can hope for this, but it’s pie-in-the-sky
But maybe, just maybe, they’ll get enough pressure from concerned individuals and organizations that they’ll start forcing drug ads to be a bit more balanced and realistic. That, at least, would be a step in the right direction.
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Breast cancer drug walking tall – among boys?
Just what we need: Another off-label use for a prescription drug
As I’ve written about before, doctors are not bound by a drug’s designated and approved-by-the-FDA usage guidelines. Mainstream MDs are free to prescribe ANY drug for ANY condition they see fit. If they want to prescribe Viagra for teen depression, so be it. If they want to see how birth control pills affect male pattern baldness, all they have to do is whip off a ’scrip’ and it’s a done deal.
Of course, drug companies know this – and they leak information about possible off-label uses for their drugs through their network of sales reps and through other channels for doctor “education.”
The latest example: The controversial breast cancer drug Tamoxifen is now being promoted as a way to help short boys get taller.
According to a recent Reuters article, a study published in the journal Pediatrics reveals research suggesting that Tamoxifen significantly retards the rate at which young people’s skeletons mature (the slower the skeleton reached maturity, the bigger it gets). This could possibly translate into a sort of “growth spurt in a bottle” for young folks of a diminutive stature
Whether this is true or not is secondary, in my eyes, to the potential for abuse inherent to any drug that can make people taller, smarter, prettier, or more coordinated. If the drug really does have this effect, and word of it gets out, what’s to stop parents of kids of ALL sizes from doling out the drug to give their children a height advantage?
Soon, we could be manufacturing a race of giants – and a society in which children who aren’t popping Tamoxifen every day are substandard. I’m telling you, it could happen
Always carrying the news to new heights,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
