Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6906

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: Journal Article

Alper PR.
Direct-to-consumer advertising: education or anathema?
JAMA 1999 Oct 6; 282:(13):1226-7
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/282/13/1226

Abstract:

In support of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC) Holmer plays down the inflationary effect; there is no corresponding lobby for drugs with lower profit potential. Profitability supersedes the presentation of balanced information. He neglects the role of managed care; manufacturers run around cost containment efforts of managers by going directly to patients to create demand. He does not discuss the effects on physicians who become involuntary appendages of manufacturers’ public relations departments. Cost shifting is eroding the close and collaborative relationship that physicians once had with the pharmaceutical industry. Holmer hints that physicians should not complain because they share the wealth created by DTC advertising. Such collusion would ultimately erode the barriers to cost-effective prescribing.

Keywords:
*letter to the editor/United States/ Advertising* Cost Allocation Drug Industry*/economics Humans Managed Care Programs/economics Patient Participation* Physician-Patient Relations