Are TV Pharmaceutical Ads Damaging?

trivialscene asks: "ABC News is carrying an article about a recently published study in the medical research journal Annals of Family Medicine which examined prime time television ads run by pharmaceutical companies. The researchers concluded that the generally ambiguous ads, which appeal almost entirely to emotion rather than fact, tend to confuse viewers. They also suggest that the ads may be creating problems at the doctor's office, as some people might become convinced they need a particular medication and insist on getting it, rather than leaving the decision to trained medical professionals. What do you think about the presence of drug advertisements on television?"

Comments

not sure

[gEvil (beta)]

I dunno. I'm still trying to convince my doctor that Levitra helps you levitate.

Who cares?

[Captain Splendid]

All that matters is that there are pills that give me erections for hours on end. Balanced against that, who cares about the dumb viewing public?

Re:Who cares?

[gwayne]

All that matters is that there are pills that give me erections for hours on end.

You need pills for that? Sheesh, what's this country coming to?

marketing vs R&D

[lotsofgadgets]

I think the big wake up call should be the fact that Big Pharma is spending more on marketing their drugs than on developing them in the first place.

Re:marketing vs R&D

[Znork]

"That's actually not true at all."

Actually, it's entirely true. Take a look at the financials of your average pharmaceutical. They spend less than 20% of revenue on R&D, 40% is marketing and administration, and 40% cost of production and distribution. Some have profits that are twice what they spend on R&D.

That, of course, means we'd get five times the R&D for the same money we're paying today if we paid for it outright rather than granting monopolies. Or we'd get the same level of R&D at a fifth of the price.

Re:marketing vs R&D

[chevelle496]

IAAD, and I think you have a very valid point. Most of the drugs advertised on television here in the US are high dollar moneymakers for the pharma companies. In my opinion, this is the biggest problem - the vast majority of the time, much cheaper generic medications which are equivalent (or sometimes superior) in efficacy are available. The ads are just marketing and serve to drive up the already astronomical price of healthcare in the US. Personally, I usually ignore requests and spend a few minutes talking with my patients and explaining to them why "Expensiva" is not the best choice based on side effects, costs, or available randomized controlled trials. Yes, this does take a bit more time, and others might just give in and prescribe, but one of a physician's most important skills is communication.

Re:marketing vs R&D

[mrfunnypants]

This is not entirely true as well. The problem with pharmaceutical companies is when they report financials they have a category labeled as "Selling, Informational and administrative expenses." SG&A is the income statement item which combines salaries, commissions, and travel expenses for executives and salespeople, advertising costs, and payroll expenses.

For example looking under Pfizer's recent released financials you will see they spent 7,599 and 835 on R&D costs (clearly stated) while spending 15,589 on SG&A. Assuming SG&A all goes to marketing, which is incorrect, you would get a good 32% on marketing and 17% on R&D. However as stated SG&A is not just marketing. If you could figure out what percentage of SG&A is marketing then you would be correct.

If I recall correctly congress was going to pass a bill which would of required pharmaceutical companies to report the true percentage spent on marketing but due to lobbying it was shot down.

Re:marketing vs R&D

[chevelle496]

You know it is funny (in a sad way), but during medical school we were taught that the average physician interrupts the patient within 30 seconds of the start of the conversation and starts asking yes/no questions. Unfortunately we (physicians), tend to miss many of the important bits of information because of that, and the average patient only talks for about 2 minutes if you just sit and listen. Miraculously, I have discovered that if you listen for that extra 1:30, you tend to save yourself a great deal of time ordering tests, drugs, etc. In my experience, patient visits tend to be handled much faster by listening for 2 minutes, asking a few open-ended questions to fill in the blanks, and parting ways with satisfaction rather than misunderstanding and unhappiness.

If I can explain something in 2 minutes rather than spend 5 minutes ordering a drug or test, everyone wins. Of course, this does not always happen, and sometimes the picture is less than clear when I leave a room...but a little extra time spent talking seems to save a lot of time in the end.

Take, for example, the common scenario of the vomiting child. Parents worried, me busy...now I can simply say, "yup, your child is vomiting, we'll give some *insert expensive anti-vomiting medication* and an IV," or I can spend a few minutes explaining the WHO process of giving small amounts (1 tsp or so) of fluid every few minutes so that the child will not vomit, explain how to limit the diet a bit for the next couple of days, and let the parents ask a few questions. In the end, the medication and IV takes an hour+ to accomplish, or the parents spend 1/2 hour giving small amounts of fluid that add up quickly. Either way (usually) the child's mild dehydration gets treated...and with a little more talking up front, I save 1/2 hour down the line.

I am the first to admit physicians get lulled into a "drug for every disease" pattern, but the truth is, a little time, reassurance and education will solve the majority of problems. The trick is knowing which problems that approach won't solve...but that's why I went to med school in the first place (and a topic for another day).

If not outright damaging, they don't help

[PDMongo]

Every time I see one of those ads I can't help but think that it isn't my job to try and convicen my doctor to prescribe some drug, it is the doctor's job to know what drugs are available and prescribe them to me.

If the drug companies want me to sell my doctor on their particlar product, I should get a commission every time they write me the prescription.

YES

[zubernerd]

YES.

My mom's an MA (medical assistant) and my wife is a medical student (M2), and both tell me that those ads are a problem.

I hate hearing about people demanding drugs after seeming them on TV, thinking they know better than a professional with 4+ years of training. I watched my wife study for her pharm course, and all the interactions, contraindications, etc is enough to make her head spin a little bit (and mine a lot). Also, most of the time an off-patent generic drug that's been around for years is more beneficial than those new drugs being advertised.

It's the like the old joke about the old lady who wants that new arthritis drug: Viagra.

Yes

[ThePolkapunk]

Short answer: Yes. Long Answer: Your doctor is the one who should know about medicine. If he finds out about medication from advertisements on TV, it is time to choose a new doctor. If he finds out about medication from patients who saw advertisements on TV, it is time to choose a doctor. If he will prescribe medication to you based solely upon your request because you saw an advertisement on TV, it is time to choose a new doctor. His knowledge of medication should be completely restricted to facts, such as effects and clinical studies. Any time a doctor is being influenced by an advertisement, whether it be from television or the frequent free catered meals and trips with which pharmaceutical companies bribe doctors, your health is being put in jeapordy.

Not for me

[Quiet_Desperation]

I identified so much with the little unhappy blob thing on the Zoloft ads, that I finally sought treatment. I am finally free of 20+ years of clinical depression thanks to that ad.

Re:Not for me

[SuperficialRhyme]

Damn, I could have diagnosed you from your slashdot nick.

Bad Idea

[Enderandrew]

We're not doctors. We don't know what is wrong with us. We don't know what we need. We shouldn't be going in and requesting specific drugs. The bad thing is that doctors are only getting so much money to see us because of the HMO system, so they get us in and out as fast as possible. If I ask for a certain drug, more than likely I'm going to get it, regardless of whether or not it is beneficial or harmful to my health.

I also thing as a society we are treating symptoms by developing dependencies on medication rather than fixing problems.

If drug companies can afford every other Super Bowl commercial, and drug reps can throw money at every doctor and pharmacist in the country, maybe they can afford to sell drugs at reasonable prices to third world countries.

George W. Bush (love him or hate him, who am I kidding, everyone hates him) maybe did one thing right. He found American drug companies were charging five times as much for AIDS medications in Africa as they charged here. They openly profitted from people's deaths, and played upon their fears.

And yes, I believe their ads play upon emotions. I'd like to see a ban on drug ads on TV. They can spend the money in better places, like further drug research or third world countries.

Ask your doctor about modding parent up.

[Rob T Firefly]

A friend of mine is a GP, and he is pretty sick and tired of his patients asking him about whatever drug was last advertised while they were watching Oprah and therefore extra suggestible. His standard response is something like "If you want the professional medical opinion of your television, visit it instead of me. You're not buying dishwashing liquid here."

Re:Ask your doctor about modding parent up.

[Citizen of Earth]

"If you want the professional medical opinion of your television, visit it instead of me. You're not buying dishwashing liquid here."

You're seeing Dr. House?

The way I see it...

[djbckr]

I see these heartburn ads on TV and think to myself: These people on the screen are actors, in good health and probably don't get heartburn. The target audience gets heartburn because they eat too much and are overweight.

I know this because I am friends with a general practitioner (been an MD for about 15 years now) and he tells me that people in shape, like the actors in the commercials - in general - don't get heartburn.

I also know this because I was one of those people that got heartburn regularly. Once I started eating properly and getting back in shape, my heartburn disappeared.

Re:The way I see it...

[gEvil (beta)]

So how's the acting career coming along?

Used to work in this industry.

[SnowDog74]

I left pharmaceutical sales because, quite frankly, I was tired of being nothing more than an interruption in a doctor's day. In fact, I left sales entirely as a result of that experience.

The entire purpose of pharmaceutical sales at the doctor, clinic and hospital administration level is this: To abnormally influence the prescribing of drugs beyond what information is public by way of peer-reviewed scientific research. The drugs your doctors prescribe are sometimes influenced by how many pens, pads, lunches, dinners and other free crap are given to the physician and/or his staff. The drugs your insurance company covers are most influenced by what pharmaceutical company wines and dines the formulary administrators the most.

Physicians and administrators who participate in golf junkets, etc., are just as much to blame, but that doesn't remove the culpability of the pharmaceutical companies who know exactly what they're doing and are constantly pushing to be able to intrude even more in the treatment of a patient by way of these methods.

There are examples of egregious behavior at various levels of the pharmaceutical business ranging from minor nuisances to egregious breaches of ethics. One competing company's rep, while I was covering Mayo Clinic, got his company kicked out for six months by following a physician into his office WHILE the physician was seeing a patient... What was the rep's urgent matter? To deliver his canned sales pitch for his product. There have been pharmaceutical companies nailed for including large gifts in honorariums given to physicians for speaking on behalf of their products.

Mayo Clinic is one of the few institutions that has extremely strict rules... No pens, no pads, no papers, samples are signed in through a controlled process giving the rep very limited access to physicians. At the same time, they'll gladly throw up a banner for your product if you'll give them a huge research grant... While that's no guarantee that they'll bias the research in the pharma company's favor, human nature is such that money tends to drive a sense of obligation to the benefactor.

The advertisements have taken the Creationist approach to marketing... by appealing to the opinions and attitudes of the average, uninformed layperson. In doing so, they are still interfering in the process without really contributing anything of value that cannot be obtained by a physician who keeps up by reading the peer-reviewed journals on his or her own time... as a good physician will want to do. Physicians already have a motivation to do this research... it's called avoiding malpractice lawsuits.

Previously reputable pharmaceutical companies have stepped up and started direct advertising to consumers on television... It's getting worse and the cacophony of products being advertised by these companies creates a confusing atmosphere of insufficient information that does what exactly? The commercials don't begin by encouraging patients experiencing certain symptoms to go see their doctor and let them do their educated diagnoses. The ads begin by summarizing symptoms in a manner that creates a sort of confirmation bias, i.e. rattling off a barrage of symptoms, one of which might lead the viewer to suspect they need the drug... while ignoring the specific COMBINATION of symptoms that preclude a specific diagnosis. Then the ads encourage the patient who SUSPECTS they might have this problem not to go to the doctor and find out the proper course of treatment... but to "ask your doctor for".

They know what they're doing and even though I agree, simultaneously, in the principle of customer awareness... The ignorance of the average customer does not change the fact that it was the intention of the company to defraud and profit on the basis of that ignorance and therefore does not make the company any less responsible for doing so.

While I agree that medical science is a luxury and not a public utility, the health of a country's citizens does directly impact the nation's

It's worse than you think...

[Gordo_1]

This article points out that even doctors are susceptible to drug company advertising:

"...according to a review published in the Jan. 19, 2000, Journal of the American Medical Association. Ashley Wazana, M.D., of McGill University, analyzed 29 studies of relations between doctors and the pharmaceutical industry and found that the industry's marketing efforts clearly influence doctors' prescribing habits, although most doctors do not believe this to be true."