DAN CHILDS, "Could Drug Ads Be Bad for Your Health?", ABC News,
January 30, 2007,
Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2833516&page=1

Do you experience confusion? Anxiety? Feelings that your life is out
of your control?

Televised advertisements for prescription drugs may be partly to
blame, new research suggests.

A study published in the current issue of the journal Annals of Family
Medicine examined 38 different pharmaceutical advertisements that ran
during peak television viewing times. Researchers found that while the
overwhelming majority of the ads made arguments for the use of drugs,
only about a quarter of them described the causes of the medical
conditions the drugs are designed to treat.

The study also found that emotional appeals were common and about 85
percent emphasized regaining control over some aspect of life.

"The ads do rely almost universally on the consumers' emotions," says
Dominick Frosch, lead study author and assistant professor of general
internal medicine at UCLA. "Medical decisions shouldn't be about
emotions. They should be on carefully weighed benefits, risks and
costs."

Frosch says presenting information about the drugs in this way could
also lead patients to think that they need medicine even if they
really don't. This could lead to changes in the way patients and
doctors communicate.

"It's really intruding onto the doctor-patient relationship," says Dr.
Kurt Stange, editor of Annals of Family Medicine and professor of
family medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "What
the ads tend to do is take up time and energy during a visit that
could otherwise be spent on things that are important to the patient."

And both Stange and Frosch say the drug ads may lead patients to
demand the advertised medications from their doctors.

"Doctors in surveys have said that they have provided drugs even when
the prescription wasn't appropriate," Frosch says. "If consumers were
powerless in changing the views of the doctors, the pharmaceutical
industry would not be spending money advertising to them. It works."

Can Advertisements Be Educational?

Before 1997, drug companies were faced with a conundrum when it came
to advertising their products through television commercials.

They could choose to mention either the product's name or what
condition it was supposed to treat, but they could not mention both.

The only alternative allowed by FDA guidelines at the time was to list
every side effect and possible contraindication of the drug 
practically an impossible feat for a 30-second commercial.

Fast-forward 10 years, and television advertising of prescription
drugs has become ubiquitous. Proponents argue that the ads serve a
valuable health function by educating patients.

However, Frosch says most ads fail to live up to this standard.

"What our study finds is that the education that these ads provide is
very minimal," he says.

Tighter Regulation May Be Needed

Despite his criticism of the current state of prescription drug
advertising, Stange says the ads are "not inherently bad." If
redesigned, Stange says, televised advertisements of prescription
drugs have the potential to provide patients with important
information. But he adds that in their current form, the ads are
unbalanced.

Frosch agrees.

"I am not sure that we necessarily have to ban prescription drug ads,
but it does need to be more regulated," he says. "The ads need to
include more information details&such as lifestyle choices that may be
better, or side effects or other contraindications. What we need to
recognize is that buying prescription drugs is not like buying a bar
of soap."