Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20196

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

TV drug ads creating prescription-pill stampede
San Fransico Chronicle 1998 Jan 7

Full text:

In Lewisberg, Tenn. patients who never asked for a drug by name suddenly are demanding the cholesterol-reducer Zocor from family doctor Clay Wilson.

In Los Angeles, those suffering from allergies appeal to Dr John Brodhead for Claritin.

A surge in television drug ads turned the airways into a virtual drug bazaar, with broadcasters squeezing in more squirm-inducing spots for the herpes drug Valtrex and the contraceptive Depo-Provera between soap opera smooches and “Seinfield” quips.

The result is a rise in patients demanding drugs by name – and doctor’s temperatures.

Although drugmakers say the spots have put new patients in doctors’ waiting rooms, physicians complain that the ill-informed increasingly are demanding drugs that they discovered during shows like “Touched by an Angel” – whether their doctor recommends the medication or not.

With drug sales rising since federal regulators relaxed TV ad rules in August, pharmaceutical companies and advertisers expect the TV blitz to increase – and strained relations between doctors and drugmakers likely will follow.

Drugmakers spent $227 million to advertise prescription drugs on television during the first nine months of 1997 – 52 percent more than they spent during the same period in 1996, according to Nielsen Media Research.

According to a recent survey of nearly 5,000 physicians by industry researcher IMS America and the Internet service Physicians Online, nine out of 10 doctors said the same number or more patients asked for specific brand-name drugs last year. More than 60 percent want drugmakers to cut back or pull the plug on TV advertising.

Drug makers point out that that the ads put patients who otherwise might go untreated in doctors’ waiting rooms.

Prescription-drug advertising has been rising all year, and the Food and Drug Administration has invited more by relaxing rules for TV drug ads in August. TV spots previously needed to thoroughly explain side-effects if the ad mentioned both the product name and the ailment that it was meant to treat.

Under the new FDA rules, companies only need mention significant side effects, referring viewers to magazine ads, toll-free phone numbers or Internet sites for details.

Popular Drugs
Some brand-name drugs that patients frequently request from their doctors: *Claritin, allergy drug by Schering-Plough corp *Allerga, allergy drug by Hoescht Marion Roussel Inc *Zantac, ulcer medication by Glaxo Wellcome Inc *Prozac, antidepressant by Eli Lilly & Co *Zyrtec, allergy drug by Pfizer *Zithromax, antibiotic by Pfizer Inc