Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1512

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

Reuters .
Drug Makers Set Out to Create Ad Guidelines to Improve Image
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 2005 May 10;

Full text:

Drug makers are developing voluntary guidelines aimed at improving television and other advertisements as part of an effort to rebuild public trust, the industry’s top lobbyist said.

Companies have been criticized for creating television commercials and magazine ads that glorify a drug’s benefits while minimizing the risks of side effects.

“We obviously have room for improvement,” said Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA. The industry “needs to recapture the trust of the American people,” he said.

The organization is developing a set of advertising principles for companies to voluntarily follow, Mr. Tauzin said.

“Risk [and] benefit needs to be carefully and seriously discussed in an ad,” he said. “If we can settle on a set of principles … we can hopefully settle some of the complaints we have had.”

Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said voluntary promises weren’t enough to ensure consumers are adequately informed about drug risks. “Can we really expect drug makers to voluntarily tell us about possible problems in these ads when they know it will hurt their sales?” said Rob Schneider, manager of a Consumers Union project to improve drug safety and prices.

Mr. Tauzin, who left Congress last year and took the helm of the drug-industry group in January, said that he was working to restore the industry’s reputation. Drug companies have been under attack for high prices and a series of drug-safety controversies.

Mr. Tauzin’s hiring also generated some criticism. He helped push a Medicare bill through Congress that included provisions favored by drug makers. PhRMA represents more than two dozen of the world’s top pharmaceutical firms.

Mr. Tauzin said he took the job in part because medicines saved him from cancer last year and he wants to promote the industry’s work.

While trying to earn goodwill with the public, companies will fight “bad policies” such as a proposed ban on consumer-directed ads for the first five years after approval and importation of less expensive medicines from abroad, Mr. Tauzin said.