Comments on: Direct to Consumer Advertising: Drugs, Hospitals, Research….

By: Dental Corpus Christi

Dental Corpus Christi — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:49:55 +0000

Very interesting and well written article. I found your blog on Google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google Reader. Keep up the good work! - Shane

By: steaven

steaven — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:38:58 +0000

Endocrinology and metabolism states: “we use our know-how to help you reach the industry’s thought leaders and maximize your return”. The NEJM states “Place your ad in the New England Journal of Medicine and make our relationship with the medical community yours”. The BMJ states “We protect our reputation by careful balance of editorial and advertising, which means your messages will always stand out”.

By: Michael D. Miller MD

Michael D. Miller MD — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:11:08 +0000

Diane - thanks for your comment. Your perspectives are very common, but don’t reflect the reality of the pharmaceutical industry. If companies couldn’t advertise directly to patients they wouldn’t have any reason to lower the prices of medicines. Prices reflect how much value the medicine provides to patients and society relative to other treatment options - and in this sense they also reflect the old axiom that prices are set at what the market will bear. Many economists point out that insurance makes health care a very skewed market since patients aren’t really seeing the actual costs of care, but that’s another topic. And it is also important to remember that the unbiased studies (including those from the FDA and the Kaiser Family Foundation), have shown that DTC advertising has many different positive and negative effects (from societal, clinical and economic perspectives) that on balance seem to come out as a wash, or slightly positive. For example, they remind people to take medicines, get refills, and call their doctors for appointments. They also make people more aware that medicines have serious side effects. They also can irritate doctors whose patients come in asking for a specific medicine. Overall, I think DTC advertising can be a good thing - but again, it needs to be looked at within the entire context of all the information patients are getting about their medical problems.

By: dianelf77

dianelf77 — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:29:35 +0000

I believe that the cost to pharmacy companies of advertising prescription drugs is the main cause of the huge increase in the drugs’ cost to patients. We lived many years without advertising prescription drugs and patients did just fine by relying on their doctors and/or nurses to tell them about any medicine that might help them. If the pharmacy companies were not allowed to advertise, we might see more reasonable prices for their drugs.