Prescription drug commercials anger some, please others

TV viewers of a certain age have a hard time avoiding commercials hawking pharmaceutical and medical products. That category is the second-most heavily advertised on TV. Only entertainment is ahead of it. 

And that’s just TV. Across all media, pharmaceutical companies are spending close to $10 billion per year on direct-to-consumer advertising in the U.S., MediaRadar reports. Only the entertainment industry spends more. 

This kind of drug-pushing is legal, of course. But is it good for the health status of Americans?

There are two schools of thought on that question. One defends a soft yes, the other a hard no. Both get a hearing in a slice of investigative journalism from KFF Health News in partnership with The New York Times.

Researched and written by veteran reporter Paula Span, the article was picked up by the Science Literacy Project April 17. 

“Industry and academic research have shown that ads influence prescription rates,” Span writes. “Patients are more apt to make appointments and request drugs, either by brand name or by category, and doctors often comply. Multiple follow-up visits may ensue. But does that benefit consumers?” 

Here’s a handful of key takeaways from the piece. 

Most developed countries take a hard pass on drug advertising. 

Only New Zealand and—despite the decadelong opposition of the American Medical Association—the United States allow direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising.
 

Public health advocates argue that such ads encourage the use and overuse of expensive new medications. 

This is so even when existing, cheaper drugs work as effectively. (Drug companies don’t bother advertising once patents expire and generic drugs become available.)
 

Researchers recently analyzed the therapeutic value of the drugs most advertised on television.

They found nearly three-quarters of the top-advertised medications didn’t perform markedly better than older ones. “Drugs without added therapeutic value need to be pushed, and that’s what direct-to-consumer advertising does,” says Aaron Kesselheim. (He’s senior author of the study and director of a program on regulation, therapeutics and law at Harvard.)
 

Opponents of a ban on such advertising say the paid messages benefit consumers. 

“[Drug advertising] provides information and education to patients, makes them aware of available treatments and leads them to seek care,” says Abby Alpert, a health economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Building such awareness, she adds, is “especially important for underdiagnosed conditions.” 

President Trump and HHS Secretary Kennedy are united in their loathing of drug ads. 

And they have some unlikely allies outside the Republican party: The likes of Democrat Sen. Angus King of Maine and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have introduced bills to ban pharma ads altogether. 

Steven Woloshin, MD, advocates more effective educational campaigns.

Co-director of the Center for Medicine and Media at the Dartmouth Institute, Woloshin says such campaigns are needed “to help consumers become more savvy and skeptical and able to recognize reliable versus unreliable information.”

At least one consumer isn’t sure how to feel about a possible ban on direct-to-consumer drug ads.

She probably speaks for many when she says to reporter Span: “If I hadn’t asked my new doctor about Ozempic [as the ads suggested], would she have suggested it—or would I still weigh 270 pounds?”

Read the full article here. Watch out, though. You’re likely to be hearing the Ozempic jingle in your head for some time afterward. You’ve been warned.