Healthy Skepticism Library item: 7584

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: news

Hendrick B.
Self diagnosis from TV drug ads can be dangerous
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 2007 Jan 8
http://www.ajc.com/health/content/health/stories/2007/01/08/0108meshmeds.html

Full text:

Patricia Riddell asked her doctor to write her a prescription for Lunesta after seeing softly-flitting butterflies in scads of ads over the holidays for the popular sleeping pill. And TV ads made Cada Kilgore realize his Restless Leg Syndrome isn’t just a “new” illness dreamed up by clever drug company marketers.

Like millions of others in the Atlanta area, and around the nation, Riddell and Kilgore – thanks to advertisements on TV and in print – know much more about their medical problems than ordinary folks did in the past. And they aren’t shy about telling their doctors exactly what drugs they think they need.

In a survey coming out Tuesday in the February issue of Consumer Reports magazine, 78 percent of primary-care physicians said they are asked by their patients for specific drugs they’ve seen advertised on TV. The surveys, which involved 335 doctors and 39,090 people around the nation, found 67 percent of doctors concede that they at least sometimes grant their patients’ request.

Such tendencies are troubling, Consumer Reports suggests, and it urges consumers to “ignore drug ads.” The magazine cautioned patients that the pharmaceutical industry “spends billions of dollars a year trying to get you to pester your doctor for expensive, new brand-name drugs.”

Dr. William Plested, president of the American Medical Association, a cardiovascular surgeon in Santa Monica, Calif. said it’s good that people are taking more responsibility for their own health and treatment, often doing a lot of research. But he said there are risks when patients play doctor, which millions do daily with the click of a mouse.

But a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, he said. The magazine reported 40 percent of doctors surveyed believe direct-to-consumer ads by the pharmaceutical industry are a disservice to the public. It also found that 40 percent of patients turn to the Internet to research medical conditions.

“If you are advertising a product on television, you are in essence telling the patient to self order, and they do,” Plested said. “And there’s no question that people ‘doctor shop’ if their own doctors don’t give them what they want.”

Many doctors are so time-crunched that they may cave in too easily to their patients’ pleas, he said.

Anyone who watches TV knows the “healing purple pill” Nexium is often touted as a cure for heartburn and “erosions in the esophagus.”

But advertised pills aren’t magic bullets, said Dr. Pablo Stolovitzky, an Atlanta ear, nose and throat specialist. He adds that he doesn’t completely agree with Consumer Reports’ flat recommendation for consumers to ignore drug ads, saying some can be helpful by making consumers more informed.

Patients in Stolovitzky’s office often ask for Nexium because they’ve seen TV ads and “if I feel it will serve the purpose of my diagnosis, I’ll do it,” he said. “But sometimes people are significantly disappointed that what they think they need wouldn’t help. We like patients who are informed, but there’s a lot of misinformation out there.”

Which may explain why the Consumer Reports study also found that 41 percent of doctors feel patients are poorly informed, even those who haul in pages of Googled research like legal briefs.

Riddell, 65, of Dacula, was seduced by the flutter of Lunesta’s butterflies in ads televised during the bowl games, so she asked her doctor for a prescription to replace the sleeping pill she was on.

“What I was on just wasn’t working,” she said.

Kilgore, a 54-year-old attorney, said seeing TV ads touting Requip for Restless Leg Syndrome offered him some psychological comfort about having a medical problem few people have ever heard about.

“My legs don’t actually twitch like the woman in the TV ads, but I just feel like I have the heebie jeebies,” said the Buckhead man. “My doctor said ‘try Requip’ and it instantly took care of my problem. I never imagined that so many people had this restless leg thing.”

Broadcast and print advertisements accounted for some 94 percent of the $4.2 billion spent in 2005 on direct-to-consumer drug ads, according to a recent report by the federal Government Accountability Office. It said that such ads are increasing each year by about 20 percent a year, and officials say the spots are working, increasing profits of drug companies and providing more money for research.

Which means consumers can expect to see even more of Lunesta’s butterflies, happy Viagra couples, and grandpas blowing soap bubbles after toking on Advair.

It also means more consumers will go to their doctors asking for those brand name drugs, said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University.

“The ads have completely turned around the old relationship when the doctor was this godlike character and you used to go in there all deferentially,” Thompson said. “Now any person can now go online and no longer feel beholden to that mysterious college of cardinals of physicians.”

The federal Food and Drug Administration is charged with regulating direct-to-consumer ads, but the GAO report said the agency is able to review only a “small portion” of them. The FDA has the power to issue warning letters to drug companies about misleading or false ads, but seldom does so. In 2006, only two warnings were issued, said FDA spokeswoman Kimberly Rawlings.

Dr. Sandra Fryhofer, an Atlanta internist and past president of the 120,000 member American College of Physicians, said ads to consumers leave her a little queasy, but a possible upside is that they boost revenues for research.

“But my feeling, and this is the opinion of the American College of Physicians, is that the FDA should impose serious limits on the pharmaceutical industry’s ads to make sure consumers aren’t misled,” she said.

Rawlings said it has always been legal for drug companies to pitch products to consumers.

But doctors like Fryhofer fred that ads can leave the wrong impressions with consumers.

“I’m worried that we are beginning to cross the line on ads,” she said. “But sometimes ads can bring attention to unknown conditions like Restless Leg Syndrome and de-stigmatize a condition like depression.”

That’s what ads have done for Carrie Smithson, a 24-year-old Alpharetta mother of three who suffers from a form of depression, an illness for which many drugs are touted.

“I saw an ad in a women’s magazine and it had a girl with all her different mood swings, and I said, ‘This is me to a T’,” Smithson said. “I brought it in to my doctor…” Now she’s taking Lamictal and is feeling much better.

“I wouldn’t have had a clue without the ad,” she said.

Jamie Kopf of Consumer Reports said the magazine’s researchers concluded that it’s smart for consumers to do their homework but that they shouldn’t try to diagnose themselves .