corner
Healthy Skepticism
Join us to help reduce harm from misleading health information.
Increase font size   Decrease font size   Print-friendly view   Print
Register Log in

Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6720

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

Lexchin J.
Consequences of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs.
Can Fam Physician 1997 Apr; 43:594-6,:


Abstract:

The rationale for allowing direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs is that it would lead to better health outcomes for consumers. There is no data available to evaluate this outcome. Therefore, the consequences of DTCA for prescription drugs needs to be assessed against the quality of DTCA for nonprescription medicines and the quality of promotion to physicians. In both cases there are significant problems. Moreover, it is likely that DTCA will negatively affect physician prescribing. Consumers want and need more information but there is a fundamental distinction between advertising and information.

Keywords:
*editorial/Canada/ direct-to-consumer advertising/ DTCA/ over-the-counter medications/ quality of information/ quality of prescribing/ Pharmaceutical Advertising Advisory Board (Can)/ broadcast advertisements/ print advertisements/references/journal advertisements/preclearance of advertisements/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER ADVERTISING/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: GENERAL QUALITY OF INFORMATION/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: JOURNAL ADVERTISEMENTS/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: CONSUMERS AND PATIENTS/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: PRESCRIBING, DRUG USE/PROMOTIONAL TECHNIQUES: USE OF REFERENCES /REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: AUTONOMOUS BODIES/REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: COMPLIANCE, SANCTIONS, STANDARDS/REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: DIRECT GOVERNMENT REGULATION Advertising*/standards Canada Drug Industry* Drug Utilization Humans Patient Education* Physician's Practice Patterns Prescriptions, Drug*

 

  Healthy Skepticism on RSS   Healthy Skepticism on Facebook   Healthy Skepticism on Twitter

Please
Click to Register

(read more)

then
Click to Log in
for free access to more features of this website.

Forgot your username or password?

You are invited to
apply for membership
of Healthy Skepticism,
if you support our aims.

Pay a subscription

Support our work with a donation

Buy Healthy Skepticism T Shirts


If there is something you don't like, please tell us. If you like our work, please tell others.

Email a Friend








Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963