According to the blog “Should Prescription Drug Ads Be Reined In?”, some people argue that drug advertising is a way to educate consumers, while others say it just increase the sales and can be misleading to customers.
In the same week were published that the company Janssen, division of Johnson & Johnson will be fined a $1.7 billion, for misbranding a schizophrenia drug and that the FDA – Food & Drug Administration – American regulatory Agency launched a platform named: “BadAd” dedicated to “truthful prescription drug Advertising & Promotion”.
The FDA, monitors the information that pharmaceutical companies give to health care professionals (HCPs) about prescription drugs. It is surely no coincidence that, at the same time as this landmark decision, the FDA launched a platform for an e-learning course for medical professional to be fully aware of the approved uses of pharmaceutical products and the limitations of use. In this way, in the case of over claiming made by a pharmaceutical company can be challenged and minimized by FDA monitoring http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm211791.htm
Created in conjunction with MedScape, the e-learning course is designed to alert healthcare providers and students to potentially untruthful drug ads and promotional materials.
The course offers continuing medical education credit for doctors and continuing education credit for other healthcare providers. While it was developed with healthcare providers in mind, anyone can take the course. The FDA is hoping that reaching students now with ‘Bad Ad’ information will have a career-long effect on how they view prescription drug promotion..
In the same press release the American regulatory Agency is complaining that many consumer advertisements for prescriptions drugs–on TV, in magazines or online represent a budget that is less than the Advertising & Promotional investments for healthcare providers. Pharmaceutical companies, in the USA, actually spend more money advertising to health care professionals than they spend advertising to consumers.
Direct-to-consumer advertising remains an important method of marketing drugs. The industry spent $2.4 billion on television ads, in 2011, according to Nielsen. However this is a 23% drop from the $3.1 billion spent in 2007.
The FDA attitude seems peculiar in Europe where the Direct to Consumer (DTC) promotion is forbidden for prescription drugs in order to better contain healthcare costs.
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/should-prescription-drug-ads-be-reined-in/?_r=0