Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20115

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: Media Release

Piatt B
Dorgan says committee wants to know effect of direct to consumer drug marketing
US Senator Byron L Dorgan, North Dakota 2001 July 24

Full text:

US Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said the Commerce Consumer Affairs Subcommittee hearing he’ll chair today will look at the impact direct to consumer marketing of prescription drugs has on the cost of prescription medicines and utilization of those medicines.

“We come with no preconceived notions about either question”, Dorgan said, “but we do want to know how the $1.6 billion prescription drug manufacturers spend on direct-to-consumer advertisements affects the price consumers pay for those medicines. We know many people, senior citizens in particular, cannot afford the cost of the medicines they need to continue to live active, independent lives. Our question is, to what extent do these advertisements, aimed at people who cannot obtain those medicines without a doctor’s prescription, affect the price consumers ultimately pay?”

“We also want to know whether direct to consumer marketing of those medicines affects how these medicines are prescribed”, Dorgan said. “Traditionally, doctors have examined their patients and prescribed medicines accordingly. Are patients now coming into doctors and telling them what medicines they want, based on these advertisements? If they are, how are physicians responding to that circumstance? How is patient health affected? Do these advertisements create consumer demand for more expensive medicines when less expensive, but just as effective, prescription drugs are available?”

Dorgan noted drug companies spent $1.6 billion on direct to consumer advertisements in 1999, an increase of 66% since 1997. At the same time, prescription drug spending as a whole has gone up 19% in each of the last two years.