E-drug: DTCA for prescription drugs
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[This article appeared in today's Lancet. It is a survey of
Direct-to-consumer advertising in the US. Below the note under
Talking points and the summary. Copied as fair use. KM]
Buy our drug
http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol358/iss9288/full/llan.358.928
8.talking_points.17904.1
'Provision of complete information about the benefit of prescription
drugs in advertisements would serve the interests of physicians and
the public'
The first direct-to-consumer advertisement for a prescription drug
appeared in Reader's Digest more than 20 years ago. Steven
Woloshin and colleagues report the results of a trial designed to
ascertain what types of message such advertisements communicate
to Americans. For 1 year, the group studied all advertisements that
appeared in the first issue of every other month of each of ten US
magazines. Their results indicate that drug companies often
advertise their products in popular magazines, especially those
aimed at women. Furthermore, though most advertisements address
the relief of symptoms that most people would treat themselves
with over-the-counter medicines, a substantial amount advertised
products for serious health problems. The researchers note that
though quantitative data is often provided about side-effects,
qualitative data is often chosen to describe the benefits of a drug.
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Woloshin S, Schwartz LM, Tremmel A, Welch HG.
Direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription drugs: what are
Americans being sold?
Lancet 2001; 358; 1141-6 (issue 9288, 6 October)
Summary
Background: Pharmaceutical companies spent US$1�8 billion on
direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription drugs in 1999.
Our aim was to establish what messages are being communicated
to the public by these advertisements.
Methods: We investigated the content of advertisements, which
appeared in ten magazines in the USA. We examined seven issues
of each of these published between July, 1998, and July, 1999.
Findings: 67 advertisements appeared a total of 211 times during
our study. Of these, 133 (63%) were for drugs to ameliorate
symptoms, 54 (26%) to treat disease, and 23 (11%) to prevent
illness. In the 67 unique advertisements, promotional techniques
used included emotional appeals (45, 67%) and encouragement of
consumers to consider medical causes for their experiences (26,
39%). More advertisements described the benefit of medication
with vague, qualitative terms (58, 87%), than with data (9, 13%).
However, half the advertisements used data to describe
side-effects, typically with lists of side-effects that generally
occurred infrequently. None mentioned cost.
Interpretation: Provision of complete information about the benefit
of prescription drugs in advertisements would serve the interests of
physicians and the public.
[and excerpt from the discussion, last paragraph]: Consumers are
increasingly exposed to direct-to-consumer advertisements for
prescription products. In turn, physicians are increasingly
confronted with patients who ask questions, or who make
suggestions, on the basis of these advertisments. We hope that our
study has provided clinicians with some sense of the content of
direct-to-consumer advertisements. Our findings indicate that these
advertisements rarely quantify a medication's expected benefit, and
instead make an emotional appeal. This strategy probably leaves
many readers with the perception that the drug's benefit is large
and that everyone who uses the drug will enjoy the benefit. In view
of the fact that FDA standards focus on truth and balance, but do
not address whether or how data should be presented, our results
are not surprising. The provision of complete information about
benefit would serve the interests of physicians and the public.
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