Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15091

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

Tanne JH.
Bayer to spend $20m to correct misleading advertising for oral contraceptive Yaz.
BMJ. 2009 Feb 17; 338:b674:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/338/feb17_1/b674?papetoc

Abstract:

Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals has agreed to spend $20m (£14m; 15.6m) to correct misleading direct to consumer advertising of its birth control pill Yaz (drospirenone and ethinylestradiol), the most popular birth control pill in the United States, with sales of about $616m last year.

The corrective advertisements began running last month and will continue through June, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said.

Bayer reached an agreement with the FDA and 27 state attorneys general, led by Bill McCollum, the Florida attorney general. The agreement follows a warning letter sent to Bayer in October by Thomas Abrams, the director of the FDA’s division of drug marketing, advertising, and communications. It adds new requirements to a 2007 agreement about problems related to Bayer’s non-disclosure of safety risks associated with its marketing of Baycol (cerivastatin), which was withdrawn in 2001.

In the letter, Mr Abrams said two 60 second television advertisements for . . .