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AMA Calls For Ban On Direct-To-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs (ap.org)
HughPickens.com writes: The Associated Press reports that the American Medical Association has called for a ban on direct-to-consumer ads for prescription drugs and implantable medical devices, saying they contribute to rising costs and patients' demands for inappropriate treatment. According to data cited in an AMA news release, ad dollars spent by drugmakers have risen to $4.5 billion in the last two years, a 30 percent increase. Physicians cited concerns that a growing proliferation of ads is driving demand for expensive treatments despite the clinical effectiveness of less costly alternatives. "Today's vote in support of an advertising ban reflects concerns among physicians about the negative impact of commercially-driven promotions, and the role that marketing costs play in fueling escalating drug prices," said the AMA's Patrice A. Harris. "Direct-to-consumer advertising also inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate."
The AMA also calls for convening a physician task force and launching an advocacy campaign to promote prescription drug affordability by demanding choice and competition in the pharmaceutical industry, and greater transparency in prescription drug prices and costs. Last month, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a report saying that a high cost of prescription drugs remains the public's top health care priority. In the past few years, prices on generic and brand-name prescription drugs have steadily risen and experienced a 4.7 percent spike in 2015, according to the Altarum Institute Center for Sustainable Health Spending.
The AMA also calls for convening a physician task force and launching an advocacy campaign to promote prescription drug affordability by demanding choice and competition in the pharmaceutical industry, and greater transparency in prescription drug prices and costs. Last month, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a report saying that a high cost of prescription drugs remains the public's top health care priority. In the past few years, prices on generic and brand-name prescription drugs have steadily risen and experienced a 4.7 percent spike in 2015, according to the Altarum Institute Center for Sustainable Health Spending.
But I, for one, would much rather see the personal injury attorney solicitations go the way of the cigarette advertisement.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Take a look at the SEC filings of a handful of major Pharma companies. Most list 30-40% of revenue as marketing and advertising.
R&D costs are 10% and manufacturing is often negligible, so marketing costs (direct and indirect) are nearly 90%.
That's all waste that we are paying for. Marketing doesn't add value to a product. Most countries have figured that out and banned it.
"ask your doctor is "X" is right for you"
If my doctor doesn't already know whether X is right for me, then I need to get a new doctor. I've always thought that this was incredibly irresponsible to be promoting the idea that the average slob off the street should suggest treatments when you need about 10 years of post-secondary education just to be able to deliver such treatment.
"end users, ask your sysadmin if systemd is right for you."
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
just tell their patients "no." If the patient decides to try to shop around for a different doctor, let them.
We've taken to googling the price of every drug we see. How many folks have diabetes or foot fungus, a lot....those drugs are about 20k/yr. The really narrowcast cancer drugs (what percentage of your audience has small cell lung cancer ?) are about 200k per year. I can see the desperate haranging a doc to prescribe this, even if the doc knows differently. If it isn't OTC, then it should not be advertised to the mass market. All this does is drive up prices. Oh, "if you can't afford your medication, XXXX MAY be able to help" burns me on so many levels, I hope the CEO of the company's family all need that drug, and that for them it is all "side effects". Everything wrong with the US "health" care system is shown by advertising these drugs direct to consumer.
NOTHING would make me happier.. I'm wearing out the mute button on my tv clicker, with all of these mindless ads for drugs with clever names, a speed-read of ......
a list of side-effects that would scare any normal person to death (hint: most have the possibilty of death somewhere in the list), and a ending with "Ask YOUR doctor if XXXX is RIGHT for YOU!!!"
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Hey dumbass, there's a mute button on your remote. Learn to use it. Better yet turn off the fucking television when you have dinner with your family.
As long as they don't lie, they have a right to speech. Already they cram in warnings and side effects.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
In order for direct advertisements to work, doctors must be listening to their patients about treatment instead of the other way around. That sounds like a dysfunctional system to me.
Take a look at the SEC filings of a handful of major Pharma companies. Most list 30-40% of revenue as marketing and advertising.
I think that's a fair number, but it's also likely the obnoxious direct-to-customer ads are a smallish part of that.
Free medications and perks to doctors, other ad mediums, and even the annual Vegas junket are all likely marketing and advertisement expense.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
When the doctors are the gatekeepers of information about prescription drugs, that brings back the good old days of free dinners, all-expense-paid conferences, gifts, and hot pharmaceutical sales reps pretending to think that you're clever.
I remember when all that prescription drug advertising began and I knew it was a bad idea in 1997 and it still is today. Way too many patients walk into a doctors office demanding and getting a drug they've heard about regardless if it is the best option.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Direct-to-doctor marketing? Doctors shouldn't have 'reward' programs for recommending certain brands over others. Then again, the profit motive itself pretty much makes a mockery of the practice of medicine in general. I just don't think the promotion of "awareness" of profitable drugs that this system provides doctors is worth the corruption and fleecing involved.
Ryan Fenton
These ads are ridiculous. Most of the products don't even give you an idea what they are for. Your doctor will not be interested in prescribing anything you see in an advertisement anyway. They must be a product of the lobby groups that influence Congress. They are almost as repulsive as lawyer advertisements.
I'm a conservative libertarian but this is still ridiculous. Why allow drug companies to spend millions (and pass that on to consumers) advertising something that consumers cannot get directly.
There are alot of things that need to change about our healthcare system but this is one. The only case where consumers should be allowed to override their doctors concerns about drugs and treatments is in cases where there is substantial loss of quality of life involved. When doctors invoke the "do no harm" clause to keep someone from accessing experimental treatments or drugs when that person is terminal or in severely degraded quality of life, its ridiculous. The doctor should be required to pass on knowledge of the risk involved, but should not be allowed to deny access.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
Just please drop the requirements that they have to list the side effects. Eating dinner with kids and having to listen to 4 hour erections and other inappropriate dinner subjects is outrageous.
Or just stop eating dinner while watching TV shows aimed at middle aged men like Monday Night Football, or My Little Pony.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Wow, grasping at straws here. Whims set the price of medication, advertising is what, 1% of that?
Here's your sign.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As the great Bill Maher once said "Shouldn't your doctor tell you what drugs you need? When you tell your doctor, isn't he just a dealer at that point?"
Doctors are human and not all knowing.
Some of them think otherwise.. I had some pain in my knees, went to see the orthopedic doctor that I'd consulted a year or so before with another knee problem. Turns out my doctor had retired, and I was referred to this new doctor. I met with him, we chatted for a bit as I explained where the pain was.. He seemed like a
pretty good "replacement" for my old doctor. He took xrays, and when I came back later to see what the problem was, the first thing out of his mouth was I needed surgery. I told him I'd have to think about it, and get a second opinion... I told him this in a very polite, conversational way, but his whole demenor changed. He got a frown on his face and he told very merudely that perhaps I'd better go see another doctor ANYWAY.. Prior to my saying the "magic words" - second opinion, he'd been this very personable doctor, once I stated that, it all changed.. Needless to say I found another doctor right away.. Most doctors understand that when the word "surgery" is used, its best-practice for the patient to get a second opinion... Apparently NOT with this doctor, and his precious ego... A bit of reading about the problem he found on WebMD showed that the only people who normally had surgery for this problem were young active sports players.. I was, at the time, in my late 50s and played no sports..
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Its a free country, let them advertise.
Being a free country doesn't mean we should do whatever stupid thing pops into our head. There are lots of reasons why we shouldn't allow such advertising.
1) These advertising costs get passed on to patients (read you and me). While I can only speak for myself I have NO interest in paying for advertising for the medicine I am consuming.
2) Furthermore this sort of advertising creates all sorts of bad incentives for patients to ask about medicines that may not be appropriate for their condition. Most people without medical training demonstrably do not understand what these drugs do nor do they understand the side effects.
3) Trust me that the doctors are already getting pestered by drug company representatives. Patients asking for medicines too serves no useful societal purpose. It's just drug companies co-opting patients to do marketing for them.
If people are too stupid to listen to their doctor, they deserve to die.
No they do not. Just because someone isn't very bright doesn't mean they deserve to die. The entire reason we require prescriptions is because people are easily swayed by fancy marketing and pseudo-science (see homeopathy) for things that don't work or even are harmful.
I figured, with all those side effects, nobody would even go near those drugs. I mean, really, are you willing to try that new drug on your toenail fungus with a risk of death attached? What that means is that people during the drug study actually died, a confirmed side effect.
In any case I think we need to stop with all these sex pills and nonsense drugs and put that money in to treating or curing life threatening illnesses. Aspirin and Penicillin were revolutionary and more beneficial than any of their very minor side effects; we need drugs like those.
WHAT?? An organization representing physicians thinks that only physicians should get to decide what drugs and devices most people hear about???? THE HELL YOU SAY!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Whims set the price of medication, advertising is what, 1% of that?
Who cares what percent of the price the advertising is? If it is greater than 0% then it is too much. I have no interest in paying for advertising budgets for drug companies.
You're neglecting compliance. Having worked at a pharma company I saw first hand huge amounts of resources dedicated to running around meeting the whim of every country's various regulatory agencies. Overhead is one of, if not the largest, cost involved.
I'm a conservative libertarian but...
From your response, it's clear that you're not. And there's no shame in shaking free of the shackles of poor ideology - or any ideology, really.
Reality is pragmatic, combining good ideas from various philosophies. Be proud to want what works, rather than sticking to labels and ghettoizing yourself into a group just to feel like you belong.
Price controls and a ban on doctor kickbacks are the real things needed. Also the ad's when you have kids asking what is a erection? then the ad's need to kicked from prime time.
There are a series of ubiquitous problems in the medication scene, thus prescription or not, they're always be controversial: having ads for ANY drug directly targeting the consumer is a bad idea and it raises (some) costs and induces in (some) trivial treatments - that's health care for you in a nutshell, nothing just works, and that's why we have doctors to steer decision, but not to take it for us. For sure one thinks people should ask doctors and pharmacists what's good for what they have, not a TV commercial, and prescription is just a formalization for prone-to-danger drugs.
The real problem is that limiting the scope of awareness to health professionals (by not marketing to consumers) is also known to cause alarming disparities: Big Pharma abuses "lobbying" all kinds of professionals into their products not by conscience but by introducing benefits to promoters - paid vacation, luxurious conferences and product presentations in fancy hotels with all paid up, commissions for regional sale success, or even direct influence in professional development. They all play a part in Big Pharma's marketing strategy for any drug, a lot more than direct consumer influence.
I'd rather they make supervision measures of these problems stricter than just taking action on consumer-centric marketing. A good example for something people need awareness about is LASIK: most doctors won't prescribe it, it's not good for the spectacles industry and for insurers to pay up, but most people would have reduced quality of life if it wasn't their own initiative to request for LASIK operations.
but I like to know what's out there. It helps me have informed conversation with my doctor/provider/whateveryoucallyours. "Hey I heard about X, would that be helpful or appropriate in this situation?" because frankly, no-one looks out for my issues better than me.
OK. That's fine .
But, the real problem here is doctors. Yes, drug advertising creates a big demand for medications that may not be appropriate. But because these medications are only available by prescription, the solution is incredibly simple. When people come in saying "I need Medication X", it's up to the doctors to say "No you don't"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
but the ban isn't just about users seeking more expensive treatments, it's about them wanting treatment they don't need and also misunderstanding the treatment due to the ads that mislead and cover up all the facts that aren't generally published on them.
people die from properly prescribed pharma at a rate of 100,000 per the AMA's 2000 published article on the matter. no - these aren't over doses - nor suicides - nor med errors causing it, but the drugs themselves.
if you want to do some digging for the article I have it hidden away in the articles section on this page - the original AMA published article as well as a site using the same data as a source (search for The Medical System Kills: FDA Approved Drugs Kill Over 100,000 People Annually). oregonstatehospital.net/resources.html
Psych meds and sleep aids are some of the most widely misunderstood and abused drugs. Want to fix your depression? Take a deadly tranquilizer called Abilify, and get encephalopathy, dystonia, akathisia, and other permanent conditions - and maybe even real depression and anxiety you never get out of. :)
And, by whim, you mean actually checking that the pharma company isn't lying through their teeth about the products?
There's been enough public instances showing these companies will paint an overly rosy picture of how good a drug is, downplay the incidence of side effects, and otherwise manipulate the data to give desired outcomes.
So, boo fucking hoo ... compliance is how we have at least some confidence these guys aren't lying their asses off to sell a product which doesn't actually provide the benefits they claim, or which is far more likely to kill you than they claim.
I don't trust big pharma to ever be honest or have anything but their own profits as a priority. Not even a little.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
There was a time, before the internet, when such advertising was a necessary counterpoint to HMOs influence on doctors to always choose the cheapest solution, but now that the information is out there for all to see, these ads really do nothing to inform, their only effect is to artificially inflate demand for expensive patent drugs. But at the same time, it was the HMOs who first promoted this idea that, once you pay the flat rate for insurance, all your medical needs, including drugs, is taken care of. That sense of entitlement is baked into all subsequent health plans, including the Medicare drug benefit and ACA. A more reasonable alternative comes from an unexpected source: George W. Bush, who early in the the Medicare drug debate proposed that only truly needy patients or those with extraordinarily high drug expenses would get any help from the government. My feeling is that such a system would have worked better to control costs. Patients would decide for themselves whether a drug with a little less of a minor side effect is really worth 10 times as much as an older generic. Seniors, of which I am one, would get used to the idea that pills, and lots of them, are just a normal cost of growing old. Of course, all of this is a trade-off. Anything you do to reduce the possibility of "obscene" drug company profits, including banning advertising, is going to reduce the incentive to develop new breakthrough drugs.
Maybe people should start saying, "I am -generally- an $ideology but -"?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
What medicine really needs is competition, and that is something the AMA, despite that lip service in this announcement, has always resisted. Instead of banning advertising, give patients the right to get their prescriptions filled on the world market, just as we do when we buy electronics from Amazon.
In 2011 the FDA fined Google half a billion dollars for the crime of letting Canadian pharmacies advertise to Americans. Make the FDA give every stolen dime back to Google, and then slash its budget so it can't pursue any more anti-competitive operations like this. Make the FDA stick to its primary mission of organizing new drug tests, and nothing else.
Every time you see a drug ad on TV, take a drink. Every time you see a new one, drink the entire drink.
So it's win-win.
Doctors get their perks and I don't have to see the standard formula medical prescription commercial where it's a bunch of Smiling Geriatrics doing everyday mundane crap while some hushed voiceover gives the rundown of the possible side-effects that are generally worse than the symptoms it's trying to alleviate.
Prescription costs? The hell is that? My insurance just pays their negotiated rate and I don't pay a dime out of pocket (premium deducted out of my paycheck...so technically the "dime" never got into my pocket in the first place).
Do you really think that it would make any difference? On this tiny speck of land where prescription drug ads are banned, ads are just as obnoxious, but screaming "There's a NEW drug for $CONDITION, ask YOUR doctor about it!" instead.
The only case where consumers should be allowed to override their doctors concerns about drugs and treatments is in cases where there is substantial loss of quality of life involved.
The knock on effects of doing this are worse for society than the problem you are trying to correct. The problem is that you hurt our ability to determine if our experimental treatments actually work.
When doctors invoke the "do no harm" clause to keep someone from accessing experimental treatments or drugs when that person is terminal or in severely degraded quality of life, its ridiculous.
Because when the patient takes that treatment that does harm them or doesn't fix the problem (just like the doctor promised it would) then the doctor gets to spend some lovely time in a court room. But that's not the worst thing. If it was just some extra lawsuits we could deal with that. No, THE worst thing is that by doing what you propose we badly hurt our ability to get people into clinical trials to find out if medicines actually work. The simple fact is that to find out if drugs work we have to do trials. This necessarily means that some people are going to die so that more may live. You cannot find out if the treatments actually and objectively work if you allow everyone to get access to experimental treatments in pursuit of improved quality of life. By advocating for free access to experimental unproven treatments you are unintentionally advocating for eliminating our ability to determine scientifically if treatments actually work.
I think your sense of compassion is admirable but you shouldn't forget about who will be unintentionally hurt by your actions. We all want to help the person we see suffering in front of us but we shouldn't forget the others who will suffer in the future if we act irresponsibly today.
Been saying this for years. The worst new offender is the drug for a very specific type of cancer. Why does that need to be advertised?
I would never have known I had Restless Legs Syndrome or was at acute risk of getting shingles if it hadn't been for the ads.
What? Why would you ever want to do away with those commercials, when they're so perfectly ripe for comic spoofing?
The media will never go for it. Just like campaign finance reform, there's no upside for the infotainment complex. Since they're the ones controlling the discussion (and making all the money) there's 0% chance things will change.
It is cute how the AMA thinks they have some say in the matter though.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
No, but it means it should actually be a free fucking country and not a country where you get to put your hand over someone's mouth just because you don't like what they are saying or it's going to cost you money.
Your freedom of speech does not permit you to harm me fiscally or physically. In this case direct advertising of drugs does both. It drives up the cost of medicine so fewer people can get it and it encourages people to take medicines that they might not actually need. People DIE because of that and you think I'm the bad guy here?
Spin it how ever you want but you are advocating putting your hands on someone else to shut them up simply because they are saying WORDS.
Words matter and freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to say whatever stupid thing you want regardless of consequences, especially when people are physically and financially hurt by it.
Medicine already has competition: churches, faith healers, supplement companies, homeopathy.
And the competition is doing very well. What good is competition when consumers are desperate and sick? If your wife or kid were to get seriously sick and the doctors in the ER tell you that she needs some expensive treatment and she'll die without it, are you gonna say, "Well, let me think about it and call around to see if I can get a better price"?
The problem with competition in medical care is that the people who need it most are least capable of making informed decisions.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'd be for that! I'm sick of seeing prescription ads, that the side effects take 4 times longer to mention, that the medicine that is suppose to cure you of whatever it is they are hawking. Plus, every one of these ads are for PRESCRIPTION meds. You can't walk into a pharmacy and say give me 30 of these. The DOCTOR has to prescribe it. Plus, these companies are banking on the idea that a consumer, wanting a "quick fix" will go running to their doctor, hounding them to prescribe it.
If drug advertising is banned, then MSNBC will disappear from TV land.
And, if drug advertising is banned how will I know what new disease I have this week?
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
I've been saying for a while that I'd pay $5-10 a month to not hear those commercials about gastrointestinal distress or bladder issues, but this is even better!
I hope they don't outlaw the Cialis commercials because the milfs they use are hot. Seriously, check it out. They're all hot and frisky.
It's less entertaining when they get to the litany of side effects, but when they get to "If you experience an erection lasting more than 4 hours...", I like to shout at the TV, "As if!".
You are welcome on my lawn.
What medicine really needs is competition, and that is something the AMA, despite that lip service in this announcement, has always resisted. Instead of banning advertising, give patients the right to get their prescriptions filled on the world market, just as we do when we buy electronics from Amazon.
I suspect there is more at play here. The advertising world, the drug companies, and the lawyers who look at any medicines listed side effects, and then go on fishing expeditions for lawsuits, have combined to make Television increasingly unwatchable. Where once upon a time, we'd have a lot of different commercials, some times about things we want to buy, now it's an infuriating mess of catheter ads, meds that they spend most of their time telling you how you might become an enraged killer, that women are full time leaky people who need to stuff stuff in every orifice to stop it, ant you really really need to take this probiotic and you will shit beautifully forever, and lawyer ads getting you to sue all the other advertisers. Everything is a disease, everything is a lawsuit.
And that isn't counting the JG Wentworth money scams or the free knee or back braces.
It used to be just during the daytime, but now it's crept into the evening hours as well.
It's pretty easy to go all free market on this shit, but I've almost stopped watching due to that crap, and it's part of television's death march. Maybe it's protecting assholes from themselves. And I'm not talking about the consumers.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It is not only television. Take a look at Readers Digest some time. If you removed just the full page advertising and only those full pages with advertising on both sides of the page, the magazine would be about a third of the published thickness. I see this in all print magazines and have now stopped subscribing.
Then we don't have to waste our time fast-forwarding listening to all the sales pitching useless crap that we don't want nor need.
If something is good enough to be "advertised" by word of mouth, it probably isn't worth it.
>> there's a mute button on your remote. Learn to use it.
It's 2015. Where's my "skip" button? Hell, I'd take a "flag this commercial as inappropriate - show me TWO OTHER non-dick-hardening commercials instead" button.
One of the side-affects of this will be that we will see more and more TV stations fail. Pharama chew up a lot of ad time, and consequently help pay for a tonne of the OTA TV that we all watch. If all that disappeared, I see a huge hole in the budget for a lot of broadcasters...
The problem with the ads (at least the ones I've seen) boils down to this.
"Hey, ask your doctor if {X} is right for you. We're not actually going to tell you was {X} is used for, because that might actually be informative. We're just going to show people leading an active lifestyle after apparently taking {X}, with the idea that without {X}, they're out-of-shape slugs.
And now, here's 30 seconds of side-effects. Remember, ask your doctor about {X}."
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I'm talking about competition in real medicine, not "alternatives." Homeopaths and other quacks already have a protected fiefdom of their own, covered inn a recent article here.
Yes, we need exactly the ability to call around and get a better price. Today we do that when we choose an insurance company to do the negotiating for us. For most people, we have nothing but the 'choice' of the insurance company our employer has picked for us. Why can't patients form buying pools to bid for expensive medications on the global market, just as countries with single-payer systems do? This is exactly how the Canadians achieve their low prices. Bulk purchasing shouldn't be reserved for governments, and American consumers should be legally alowed to benefit by being able to get prescriptions filled anywhere they wish.
You can be sure that if the US were to adopt its own government single-payer system, as Democrats have proposed, that lobbyists would have it restricted to the artificial domestic drug and hospital market, just as the VA and Medicare are now.
Hmm.. No.. That is one of the primary motivators that gets new drugs developed. If you don't want these new drugs, don't buy them. However, don't interfere with my rights to buy them by placing regulations on business that stifles innovation so NO ONE can have the drug because it was never developed. Do you really want Congress deciding which drugs will be developed and which ones won't? If you think it's expensive to buy drugs, try buying a member of Congress sometime (and, usually, even if you were successful, you would be dead before the drug you bribed them to approve research on would actually be available).
Maybe Apple shouldn't be allowed to advertise either, or maybe all cell phones should be designed and provided by the government? After all, cell phones are considered critical enough that in the U.S. that subsidies/discounts are available through one or more government programs so poor people can afford that service. Surely Apple should not be allowed to drive the price of cell phones up by advertising and then having to recoup their advertising cost.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
In an open market the advertisers would realize this, and make their ads more attractive. The FDA prevents them from doing so, and prevents advertisers from offering offshore sources, even of the same compounds.
I'm betting most doctors don't either these days, and I'm also fairly sure the only source of this is the marketing material provided by the company
Drug company marketing materials are routinely NOT the only source of information. Furthermore doctors are well aware of that information from drug companies is suspect AND unlike you or me they have the training to understand what they are being told. My wife happens to be a physician and she has to interact with drug reps all the time. She regards anything that comes out of their mouth as a lie until proven otherwise by independent sources. Most doctors do not think very highly of drug companies.
The more we remove the pharmaceutical companies from driving decisions around healthcare and determining which products to use the better ... because having the conversation be dictated by multi-billion dollar corporations trying to maximize profits is a terrible idea.
I could not agree more.
In an open market the advertisers would realize this, and make their ads more attractive. The FDA prevents them from doing so, and prevents advertisers from offering offshore sources, even of the same compounds.
As much as I would like to believe that, advertising in general is screaming Look at me! Look at me! The only real regulation on the medicine side is that they have to spend a lot of time telling you the side effects, which is alittle off putting. The Lawyers? The people trying to get you to give up an annuity for some instant cash? They are pretty much unfettered, at least in advertising.
And that's pretty much why I'm saying that there are other factors at work here. Where they are at now - it isn't working, and there is a competitor in town. The intertoobz. So some of the big players like Comcast, they have a vested interest in having people buy their television service. And people are cutting that cable to the point that they are really concerned.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I am an unreformed 1960's liberal hippie lefty, and I agree. Advertising prescription drugs to the public is idiotic, and only encourages hypochondriacs.
> Its a free country,
Yes, a "free country" where you aren't actually allowed to go out and buy those drugs for yourself.
If you aren't competent to buy the product yourself, you aren't competent to be advertised to.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Do you think most consumers of health care can correctly define "real medicine"?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Peer reviewed scientific journals.
In other words, doctors would have to pay for an expensive subscription to look at ads.
If you are "taking an active interest" in health care, you don't need drug advertising. If anything, that kind of activity is directed at the most ignorant and least engaged kind of patient/consumer out there. THAT is actually the problem. Drug ads drive conspicuous consumers and distort healthcare and turn some doctors into glorified pushers.
This is the Internet age, if you want to genuinely educate yourself about something then you can.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Listen Potsy, dryg companies were banned from advertising prescription drugs. In the early '90s the ban was lifted. Since then drugs companies have spend an enormous about of money on advertising and next to nothing on R&D. Time to re-institute the ban. You can't buy the fucking drug without a prescription! So it's pointless.
Now if this could really happen. Sick do death of the ED drugs. Not too mention it seems a lot of the drugs will kill you first before fixing the problem.
Which begs the question as to why bribing doctors should be allowed....
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
because the market would absolutely, positively NOT be flooded with Chinese melamine tablets masquerading as antibiotics.
I kind of like the stringent standards that the FDA imposes on prescriptions; really this sounds more like a patent/IP issue; drug companies are able to restrict the manufacture of generics for years, thus artificially keeping prices high.
How do you see hate in my statement?
You sound like the type that also sees hate in a red coffee cup.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I suspect this is what's really driving doctors to want the ads banned. In the old days, pharma companies would "market" to doctors (i.e. kickbacks) to promote their drugs. Now they've cut out the middleman and market directly to the consumers.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
They should start with the first amendment to the US constitution. Any statute that bans advertising is unconstitutional on its face.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I was truly annoyed, years ago, with the first stupid ads for "the purple pill", "ask your doctor"... with NO verbiage as to what the pill was *for*. A *lot* of ads for prescription drugs are like that. And for the others... go read the PDR on one you might think would help you, and then look at all the contraindications. Why the hell would you even ask your doctor if he's already prescribing something else for you?
Asking the doc about other drugs, if the one(s) your on is reasonable, asking them for one specific drug, that they may have already written off, is not.
It's like an ordinary user of Windows making suggestions as to how to administer a Linux server.
And the ad budget for that crap raises the price of the drug above and beyond what the execs "need" for their annual bonus.
mark
Maybe he thinks that freedom from being manipulated into making bad health choices is more important than freedom to manipulate someone into making bad health choices for profit?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
How else will you learn that the miracle drug you saw advertised a week ago is causing death and injury worthy of substantial compensation?
Week one: "Hoomirratt has made a difference in my lung function!"
Week two: "This is an Important Announcement for people who took Hoomirratt, or their grieving loved ones."
Two shots if both ads are running at the same time.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
It's the AMA that has the defacto monopoly on accreditation of new medical schools. There have been a few built but nothing close to the rate necessary to keep up with demand. Why? To improve physicians' salaries.
This not only costs money, but lives
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
R&D costs are 10% and manufacturing is often negligible, so marketing costs (direct and indirect) are nearly 90%.
That's all waste that we are paying for. Marketing doesn't add value to a product. Most countries have figured that out and banned it.
It's not banned because it's a waste of resources, it's banned in most other countries because it's dangerous to manipulate people into thinking drug X, Y and Z will save you.
Pharma ads have been growing like weeds in TV spots, pushing aside old stalwarts like cars and beer. Even better for the networks, pharma ads tends to be long, 60 seconds or even more, easily filling ad space, including some of the most expensive ad space a network sells (like the Evening News). If they all went away, big revenue for the big networks would go up in smoke.
Of course, I'd love it. Save me from having to skip over them all the time, 'cause they're horrible, the way they show idyllic scenes of fantasy family life while a voice-over rattles off legaleze and side-effects. Good drinking game, take a shot every time you hear the phrase "can lead to death".
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Take a look at the SEC filings of a handful of major Pharma companies. Most list 30-40% of revenue as marketing and advertising.
The same percentage as in most other industries. Companies that build and sell medical devices that are never sold or marketed to patients spend about the same percentage.
The AMA was founded by doctors. It's main purpose is to promote the welfare of doctors. That is not good or bad thing, but it is a very useful to keep that mission in mind when you hear the AMA speak.
The first question I would ask is that if the AMA is really concerned about health care costs, why does it not push harder to make more drugs like birth control pills available over the counter without a prescription? Or streamline the prescription process for drugs that low potential for abuse or for causing harm (most ED drugs)?
The second question I would have to ask is why is a better-informed consumer a bad thing? If the ads are incorrect or misleading, that obviously need to be addressed, but other than that, why would a patient hearing about a possible new treatment option be a bad thing? Are we not supposed to ever question our doctors? Is a doctor's time really so valuable that they cannot explain treatment options?
There are some serious 1st Amendment issues here as well. 30 years ago, you could have made the argument that public airwaves are a limited resource and that the government should have some say in their use. With cable, that is no longer true. You really have to show that drug ads are a major concern for public health like the cigarette ads were. The fact that drug ads annoy doctors is not a good enough reason.
Cynical translation: Advertising to consumers should be illegal, that way only doctors can be advertised to, in the form of kickbacks and invitations to "conferences".
Spencer Ogden
Which begs the question as to why bribing doctors should be allowed..
In fact, it pretty much isn't any more. Even free lunches are banned if there's no "invited speaker." OTOH, lots of MDs get rich by investing in drug companies or by opening their own treatment (or MRI, or colonoscopy) centers and then sending their patients there.
And quit misusing "begs the question," m'kay?
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
The AMA's working hypothesis is that we're all stupid. This applies to many consumers in any given area, but who are they to prevent the rest of us from exercising intelligent choices? After all, it's not that consumers are going to suddenly start doing their own doctoring, any more than we fix our own computers or work on our own cars. Today's world gives us a huge range of choices by default, except in areas where a monopoly has infiltrated the legal system and prevented us from exercising choice.
We've started Ubering our cab rides now, and the sky has not fallen. Time to disrupt a far more pervasive and pernicious monopoly than the one we get a taxi ride from once a year.
If more people had a general understanding of statistical terms and concepts, there wouldn't be as great a need for protecting them from the surface-level misrepresentations.
The simply fact is however that most people have very poor understanding of statistics and worse understanding of biochemistry, physiology, drug interactions, etc which are important when evaluating medicines. If people buy snake oil like homeopathy do you really think they are going to look objectively at real medicines? Even fairly smart and ostensibly well educated people buy into pseudo-science and quackery on a routine basis.
That said, I agree that people shouldn't have to suffer just because of the state of the educational system in this country at the time when they were coming through it.
It wouldn't matter if we had the best educational system possible. Some people simply aren't very bright and are easily taken advantage of and no amount of education will fix that. We have to protect everyone, not just the high achievers.
I have to agree with you. One happy result of calling around about the price, is that you'd actually learn the price! Try and get a total cost quoted up front from the medical profession now.
Hey dumbass. There's an "engage" button on your brain. Learn to use it. I know, I know it hurts like hell, but your really need to take the time to understand the things you read. The medical community, in what I must say is a rather surprising move, is telling us that the over-the-top marketing of expensive prescription drugs is a bad thing for their patients. They should know, better than Big Pharma, better than government "regulators" who've allowed this mess to happen, and certainly better than you.
It's easy to find out when some new drug gets approved, I hear ads for the drug on the alarm clock radio every morning. "Do you have [insert mild, benign symptom here]? It could be [insert nasty sounding disease here]! Go to our website and fill in our survey so we can prove it to you, then talk to your doctor to see if [insert drug name here] is right for you!"
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I fix my own computer and work on my own car. I don't do my own doctoring. I'd bet more than a few Slashdot readers fix their own computers and work on their own cars.
I want you to think about why "Uber for Medicine" is a really bad idea. I bet if you give it a few minutes, you'll come up with some very good reasons that we really don't want anything like Uber for Medicine.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Medicine already has competition: churches, faith healers, supplement companies, homeopathy. And the competition is doing very well.
The competition may be doing well, but it's not doing very much good.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
I was wondering: whose AMA was it, and why is slashdot linking directly to reddit now?
...I think it is one of the most bloody f-g amazing things I have heard in a good long while.
Previously I have seen the AMA as being definitely part of the problem (and maybe this is just damage control in the face of Obamacare, etc?), and their (medical) side being part of the problem is much, MUCH worse than all of the business elements which are (e.g. insurance, pharmaceutics, etc.).
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
not really. many times searching for useful knowledge only returns marketing/sales sites or brief/vague description of something that someone wrote some time ago and a zillion other sites simply aggregate that into their useless website.
mfwright@batnet.com
I'm talking about competition in real medicine,...Yes, we need exactly the ability to call around and get a better price.
I don't see how that could possibly work. As someone with a family of 5, almost all of my encounters with the US medical system are along the lines of "OMG, we have to go to the hospital NOW." or "your {relative} had an accident, and was taken to {hospital X}" (which is almost always the nearest one physically capable of performing the required service). Nowhere in there is a good opportunity (and sometimes any opportunity at all) to shop around for a better ambulance service or emergency health provider.
This is what economists call a "captive market". In such a market, there can be no real competition. Everything is a "take it or leave it" proposition. Against life-or-death choices, that's no choice at all. So this pretend "free market" ends up just being a system to allow providers to make however much they think their unfortunate users can afford.
Yes, for non-emergency things its different, but its the emergency services that are costing all the money.
In general you physically can't have a free market in health care. Basic economics says its not an option.
Doctors are expected to live near enough to a library that has a subscription
I thought doctors were expected to live near their patients, even if those patients live far from a library. Or do I misunderstand the meaning of the name Doctors Without Borders?
For those of you old enough to remember, there was a time, not too long ago, when prescription drugs were not allowed to be advertised on television. We should ban them again, along with ads from lawyers (they used to be prohibited from advertising, too). It's not a matter of free speech - we ban tobacco companies from advertising on television - it's a matter of public good.
Today we have patients going into their doctor's office and demanding a drug they've seen advertised on television, BEFORE they're even examined to determine what's wrong! If they don't get what they think they need, they go to one doctor after another until they do, and sometimes the medicine they think they want is either not effective or dangerous.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Quick question... exactly what color is the sky on your planet? .... do unicorns really fart rainbows?
Follow up question
If you don't believe it, just think how effective SPAM is - and we KNOW whatever junk is being peddled by random emails is junk, but people buy shit from the places paying SPAMers by the truckload.
seriously, does
I have seen an ad for a drug on one of the national tv channels then immediately following that commercial was a lawyer commercial, advertising that if you'd taken THE SAME DRUG IN THE PREVIOUS COMMERCIAL and had experienced the listed side effects, you should call "1-800-BADDRUG", and you might be entitled to substantial compensation... All I could do was shake my head at this.. I wonder if the station/network got their asses chewed for that slipup.....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
I'm an unreformed 1960s conservative and I agree... Holy Shit.. A conservative and a "leftie" agreeing on ANYthing? Has hell frozen over??? Listening to some of the side-effects of these drugs, you'd wonder why ANYONE with half a brain would ever take them.. Then of course you have a lawyer commercial next that tells you if you take these drugs and experience any of the side effects, "You may be entitled to substantial compensation"... All you can do is shake your head at the sheer stupidity...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
I think the OP was talking about compliance in all phases of drug development and distribution that go well beyond marketing. They are extensive and expensive!
love is just extroverted narcissism
And you're trying to tell us that nobody gets fucked by the invisible hand?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I have seen an ad for a drug on one of the national tv channels then immediately following that commercial was a lawyer commercial, advertising that if you'd taken THE SAME DRUG IN THE PREVIOUS COMMERCIAL and had experienced the listed side effects, you should call "1-800-BADDRUG", and you might be entitled to substantial compensation... All I could do was shake my head at this.. I wonder if the station/network got their asses chewed for that slipup.....
I think that is the television version ot the internt's Tailored web experience.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
What, I missed a joke or something? Did you not say that churches compete with, and so are somehow against, modern medicine? And you said that they are doing well at it.
Modern medicine, which saves countless lives, is somehow opposed by the church, who then, logically, would want people to die.
Explain to me how that it is not hateful.
Compete with in the sense that there are people who choose to go light a candle or pray to Jesus instead of getting medical treatment. Educated people, too. It's more common than you'd think, especially with cancer. Chemo can be so onerous as to make people choose faith over medicine. The churches are not "against" modern medicine (well, most of them aren't). But for some people, they represent an alternative. And with medical care so expensive, I'll bet it's an alternative more people choose than you might care to admit.
That's all coming from your own head. Nothing I said indicates any of it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Only if they pay the invisible hand the appropriate, agreed upon, fair market value for finger fucking.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
In theory, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Reality doesn't seem to support the theory, however.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I'd +1 the insightful if I had the points!
Prearranged insurance is our only way of negotiating on emergency services. We just need a wider choice of insurance companies. Don't try to sidetrack this as some sort of plea for ideological purity either; the ACA with its insurance markets actually gives us choices we didn't have before, and why not try a single payer system for those parts of the medical system already controlled by government? If Medicare could save by buying medications in bulk as the Canadian system does, let's try it. And if this does prove more efficient, why not let consumer buying clubs enjoy the same savings?
Competition in medicine doesn't have to mean throwing poor children into snowbanks. Because medicine is a basic need, I don't expect to see the percentage of charity and governmental presence in it change, but all parties, public and private, will save if we use competition to lower costs.
This is the economics equivalent of screaming "denier" at anyone who quibbles about the fine points of AGW theory. No, the whole idea of open markets and competition was not dreamed up in 1930 by that one Russian chick who all the liberals hate. It is as old as the human species.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I'm reminded of the companies that actually lobby to keep "blue laws" that make it illegal to be open on Sundays (I've heard this said of both car and booze sales on weekends). They expect that they wouldn't do enough business on Sunday to make it worth paying employees to keep the shop open, but if the government didn't force everyone to close they'd HAVE to be open because if they weren't, their competitors would get the business.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Okay. It is unclear then why you drug Christians or even homeopathy into it.
On the subject, we were fine with our free and open society when prescriptions could not be advertised. I would support going back to that. There is no right to advertise cialis on my television.
I did not mention Christians at all. I mentioned "churches" and there are certainly non-Christian churches.
You are welcome on my lawn.
which is all done to get the doctor to push their drugs.
which should also be illegal.
the thing driving doctor recommendations should be medical science, not bribes.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
So, you're saying that if people aren't part of a "clinical trial" you couldn't possibly record information about whether the treatment actually worked?
If you aren't part of a clinical trial in most cases you CANNOT know if the treatment works. Sometimes people recover and it has nothing to do with the medicine. Happens all the time. So did that aspirin cure your headache or did it go away for other reasons? With one data point you cannot possibly know for certain. Even if you collect a lot of data points you still may not be certain of whether a drug works. Unless you structure a study and can control for variables (typically with a trial) and have a control group it is in many cases literally impossible to be certain if a treatment actually works. There are exceptions of course but not often.
Not all trials have to be double blind studies (many aren't). Anecdotal evidence of treatments administered has some value in some cases but generally it is useless because you have no well defined control group to compare against or because there are too many variables to account for to understand the mechanism of action. I have a lady I work with who is convinced that echinacea has kept her from getting the flu despite the fact that every credible scientific study says that it has no effect. It's the logical fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. There are countless other factors that can explain why she has avoided the flu which have nothing to do with her taking that supplement.
My now deceased neighbor was part of several clinical trials. She always lied about her drinking and thc consumption, so I don't think that data from clinical trials is necessarily more pure than data from people who try experimental treatments without being a member of a clinical trial would be.
Doctors who run these trials are well aware that people lie. I have family who are involved in running these sorts of trials. Examples like what you cite are one of the many reasons why you need large groups so that you can control for the noise. Plus in many cases they will actually do a physical to check for lying. And if it is a double blind study they have a 50/50 chance of getting a placebo anyway.
Your way isn't the only successful way.
Double blind studies are the gold standard of clinical trials for a very good reason. There are times when other things will work or when they aren't feasible but that doesn't mean we should start accepting bad scientific data. Utilizing experimental treatments for compassionate care is almost the very definition of hurting many people in the long term to (probably futilely) help one person in the short run.
I thought that 10% R&D cost figure was hugely inaccurate (given a recent presentation to my Rotary Club by a Pfizer sales rep). But apparently it's not far off at all!
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/s...
Pfizer (a big R&D spender) probably continues to cut back from their 2011 13.5% R&D budget, so 10% might not be so far off after all.
I have seen an ad for a drug on one of the national tv channels then immediately following that commercial was a lawyer commercial, advertising that if you'd taken THE SAME DRUG IN THE PREVIOUS COMMERCIAL and had experienced the listed side effects, you should call "1-800-BADDRUG", and you might be entitled to substantial compensation...
Without ads for prescription drugs and ads for class-action lawsuits against said drugs, Fox loses 99% of its revenue stream, ISIS doesn't get the holy war they were looking for and World War Whatever never happens.
Hey dumbass, there's a mute button on your remote. Learn to use it. Better yet turn off the fucking television when you have dinner with your family.
Love the viagra / cialis ads that appear at mealtime and just before Jimmy Kimmel show. We Canadians watch American channels and are aghast at the amount of drug advertising, with final minor warnings, this drug can kill you if you have this or that. And of course, there are now viagra / ciallis adverts for women.
Time to restrict watching to Canadian channels. -- no drug adverts allowed.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
http://effectivehealthcare.ahr... solves this issue.
Casteism
If people want to take something, and it doesn't do physical harm to anyone else, they should be allowed to.
But that's the thing. It DOES harm someone else. It harms people in the future because don't know whether a medicine works or not. Stop thinking that the only person that matters is the person suffering currently.
Whether some third party is happy about it or not should never be a consideration in what is legally permitted.
It matters very much when that third party is directly affected. Experimental treatments are NEVER just about the patient being treated. It's about saving as many lives as possible. There are ways to reduce suffering (pain, nausea, etc) that do not sacrifice our ability to improve medicine.
If large numbers of people take a drug about which you want to learn more, data can be collected from learning their experiences. Sure, there'll be more noise, but as you have pointed out, with enough data points, the noise can be filtered out.
First, many conditions simply do not have large numbers of people affected so you cannot rely on large numbers. Second, collect what data exactly? What exactly are you studying and how do you direct large numbers of uncoordinated people to collect useful data on a drug that by definition is experimental? Third, who is going to keep track of the data and how do you ensure the data is accurate, unbiased and untainted? Fourth, even when large groups are possible there usually is STILL is too much noise to know if a treatment is effective unless the effectiveness is really, really strong and immediate. Fifth and most importantly, you are literally sacrificing lives in the future to give an experimental treatment that in all likelihood is futile at best.
Frankly your assumptions simply don't hold in the real world. We do medical studies the way we do for VERY good reasons. If it really was as simple as you claim we would already be doing it that way. It would be a lot cheaper and easier but unfortunately what you suggest very rarely actually works. You are suggesting things that have already been considered and dismissed by people who know what they are doing because doing studies in that fashion does not work well.
I have not doubt that double blind studies do a fine job. If you want people to participate in a study, redirect some of that advertising money and pay them.
Putting a profit motive to a medical study is a BAD idea for all sorts of reasons. You think no one has ever thought of that? Doing that creates all sorts of ethical problems not to mention introduces even MORE noise in to the data itself. Seriously, go talk to someone who actually runs these sort of studies or a medical ethicist. It would take me a long time to run through all the reasons your suggestion is a Really Bad Idea.
You could say that about any product. You could argue that McDonald's shouldn't be allowed to advertise because it increases the price of a Big Mac.
There are huge and important differences. 1) If the drug is available it will be prescribed by a doctor who is aware of the drug already and who will utilize his professional judgement about efficacy. There is no health care benefit to advertising to me. 2) As a non medical professional I have NO clue if what the drug company is advertising is appropriate treatment. Having me ask my doctor about the treatment does not change that fact. 3) Advertising a drug to a patient directly is expensive and unnecessary. Healthcare costs are too high already without adding to the pile with sleazy marketing to nervous patients. 4) It doesn't benefit patients and results in no demonstrably improved health care outcomes. If it doesn't improve care then it shouldn't be allowed.
Why not just ban advertising in general?
Because that would be stupid. If you can't see the difference between advertising a Big Mac and advertising a drug then you're pretty clueless.