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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....
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.
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.
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
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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sure, when you shop around for a doctor you then get shoved into your state's Doctor shopping database like you are an addict.
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 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.
> Then don't - the same way you can avoid paying for BMW's advertising by not buying a BMW.
That's just assinine. These are MEDICAL TREATMENTS we're talking about here. Some of them aren't even a matter of personal preference, there's a very real public safety element to some of them. Tolerating PESTILENCE is a VERY BAD idea.
Not to mention that these things are monopolies.
Medical journals cover the extent to which doctors actually need to be informed about this stuff. The rest is just milking a system that's already close to it's breaking point.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.