Slashdot Mirror
Pharma Marketing Faces a Character-Count Conundrum
this_boat_is_real writes "There's growing concern over how pharmaceutical companies use social media and the Internet to market their products. Last November, the US Food and Drug Administration held a hearing on the topic, and many were worried over how marketing mediums such as Twitter — which has a 140-character limit on text — can sufficiently disclose drug risks." Here's the FDA's announcement about last year's hearings, which includes links to an archive of presentations as well as a video record of the meeting.
What the drug companies should do is to add a disclaimer such as: -
"Though these drugs may work as advertised, their use is not intended for use by residents of the USA. Such residents who wish to employ these drugs should ensure that their employment does not go against laws in their jurisdictions."
All the cool kids today are using URL shorteners. They make it impossible to see where a link is going, make the link's function depend on two 3rd parties rather than just one, and probably provide lots of sneaky analytics data; but they allow you to embed URLs in your tweets, so clearly it's worth it.
.ug TLD. All we have to do is obtain dr.ug and set up a URL shortening service specifically for linking to giant lists of scary sounding side effects from pharma shill tweets. What could be more logical?(Besides, y'know, not fucking direct marketing Prescription Drugs...)
Anyway, the fine nation of Uganda has the
"Buy __MIRACLEDRUG__ to cure __DREADDISEASE___. See your doctor before using. May be fatal."
There, as long as __MIRACLEDRUG__ and __DREADDISEASE__ aren't too long I think we've met the 140-character limit and mentioned the worst possible side-effect. Can we archive this discussion now?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Perhaps because it was designed with SMS limitations in mind?
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
The thing is, in a 30 second commercial, you can use a sped-up announcer or 2 point fonts that are completely unreadable, but TECHNICALLY meet the requirements.
In a 140 character twitter message, you can do a bit of unintelligible abbreviation, but even then, 140 characters isn't enough to include the disclaimer ITSELF.
Quit allowing the advertisement of prescription drugs. The reason that prescription drugs are, well, by prescription, is that they may carry significant risks, and careful evaluation by a professional is required as to whether a patient should take them.
If a patient needs a prescription, let their doctor be the one who gives them their options, based on a full discussion of the risks and benefits of each possible one, and let the patient be the one to decide based on this information. And while we're at it, let's disallow the pharma companies from ever knowing how often a given doctor prescribes their stuff, so that they can't give any type of reward or kickback (they would still, of course, know how often they're prescribed in aggregate).
Medical decisions should be made based upon a detailed discussion with a professional, not a glossy brochure.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
If you ban all drug ads, then how do you educate the public that a particular syndrome is treatable?
that's a very good point. before i visited the states i'd never seen an ad on tv for prescription drugs. i can't see how it helps anyone other then the drug company, and their well being doesn't trump the publics.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
wanna bet the law gets changed ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Sounds to me like with the exception of the (possibly) the last bullet point those kind of ads should be banned. They play into people's fears and constant need to "enhance" themselves. These companies are just hoping to make us all hypochondriacs and it seems to be working sadly. The ins and outs of various diseases and medicines should be left to the expert, the doctor, not some half-brained twit who rots their brain watching hours and hours of pharma ads.
The disclosure laws are there for a reason. If you can't satisfy their requirements in a tweet then you can't advertise pharmaceuticals on Twitter. If you can't satisfy them in a Google ad then you can't advertise pharmaceuticals in a Google ad.
This isn't affecting any one company over another or anything like that. It's just following the laws to their conclusion -- and, really, going right along with their intention. Putting a drug in your body is of much greater consequence than what company you buy your mass-produced junk from, and these laws make sure drug companies can't just do snappy, feel-good 10-second spots with no substance whatsoever like beer companies and cola companies.
A big part of advertising is repeating a brand name over and over. There's an impression made by hearing a brand name in association with positive images or text, even if you aren't very involved with the ad. The disclosure laws try to prevent companies from just spamming you with impressions and making sure there is substantial information right up front. If it's behind a link, as many of these companies propose, that's all lost. The casual eye skips over, gets the positive impression and none of the disclosure.
So... within our current framework if there's no room to disclose right up front there should be no ad at all. Maybe the disclosure laws suck, maybe the fact that drugs are advertised at all sucks... those are separate points. As the law stands now, no Twitter ads for Viagra. Yay!
Already happens, see alcohol and tobacco advertising restrictions. Previous SCOTUS rulings oked them. The current SCOTUS may not, but we may get lucky and have Scalia or Thomas die.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
After reading this (and other comments in a similar vein) I can see more clearly what is wrong with commercialised healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry in the USA. For all us non-Americans out in the real world, the title of that patriotic song "God Save America" might be changed to "God Save Us From America".
... I am regularly amazed by the sheer number of pharma ads on television. Depending on the time of day I can see anywhere between 50 to 100% of the ads on TV being about pharma products.
I'd worry about getting those ones down before I worried about the Internet ones.
Free speech is never absolute, and certainly never in a commercial setting. For example, your doctor cannot go post your medical records on a public website. That's free speech, but HIPAA bans it, and I think you'd find arguing that a doctor should be exempt from HIPAA on free speech grounds not to meet the reception you'd expect in court.
In advertising specifically, tobacco and alcohol ads are already restricted. Indeed, a mandate of disclosures (and a requirement that advertising be true) are all allowable restrictions.
And I say this as someone who will ardently defend the freedom of speech, even down to things one finds disgusting or shocking or distasteful. But speech when you're trying to sell something is different altogether. Speech when you're selling something that could have significant risks, ten times so. No constitutional amendment is required here.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
It's not the count of the characters, but the content of their character that is the problem with big pharma.