Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20198

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: Magazine

Rouse R
New Zealand voice raises risks of DTC advertising
Medical Observer 2004 Aug 145

Full text:

GP experiment of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs across the Tasman should serve as a warning to Australia not to go down that path, a Brisbane conference has heard.

Direct-to-consumer ads had increased dramatically in recent years in New Zealand, the 8th World Congress on Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics in Brisbane was told.

The effect on prescribing was marked, and it changed the doctor-patient relationship, said Les Toop, professor of general practice at the University of Otago.

“What direct-to-consumer advertising does is turn patients into salespeople for the drug”, he said.
A survey of 1600 GPs in NZ found that 90% had had consultations specifically generated by ads, and 68% felt these consultations were unnecessary, Professor Toop said.

Australian consumer advocate Sarah Fogg, a member of the Pharmaceutical Health and Rational Use of Medicines (PHARM) committee, said that direct-to-consumer advertising could already be occurring in Australia by default through disease-awareness campaigns that exhorted consumers to “see their doctor”.

However, Medicines Australia communications manager Steve Haynes said that a recommendation to take medication was but one outcome from disease-awareness programs, with a recent study showing a variety of responses by medical practitioners, including recommending lifestyle changes.

“The outcome of disease-awareness programs is to encourage patients to visit their doctor for assessment and treatment”, Mr Haynes said.

“Isn’t this [preventive] healthcare for consumers at its best?”