Healthy Skepticism Library item: 9340
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
Saul S.
Celebrex Commercial, Long and Unconventional, Draws Criticism
New York Times 2007 Apr 10
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/media/10celebrex.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin
Full text:
A new television commercial for Pfizer’s painkiller Celebrex that has attracted attention for both its length and innovative marketing approach is now also being criticized for its message.
Public Citizen, a consumer group, asked the Food and Drug Administration yesterday to ban the commercial, charging that it gives consumers a false impression that the prescription drug has no more safety risk than some other painkillers.
Celebrex is in the same class of drugs as the Merck pill Vioxx, which was withdrawn in 2004 because of its link to cardiovascular problems. At that time, the F.D.A. also asked Pfizer to suspend its television advertising for Celebrex, and the company complied.
The new Celebrex ad, which can also be seen on a Pfizer Web site celebrex.com represents a return to television for the product after a hiatus of more than two years. It was broadcast for the first time last Monday on “World News With Charles Gibson” on ABC.
It was two and a half minutes rather than the usual 30 seconds, and was the only ad during last Monday’s program.
Mr. Gibson announced that the new format with less advertising would be repeated on several Mondays this month.
Pfizer has also bought last night’s and next Monday’s “World News” broadcast, but had said all along that it would not disclose the content of those ads until they were broadcast.
Last night’s advertisement involved smoking cessation and directed viewers to a Web site, www.mytimetoquit.com that links to information about Chantix, Pfizer’s prescription stop-smoking drug.
The Celebrex ad compares Celebrex with the safety of other painkillers and discusses the risks associated with its use.
A Pfizer executive defended the advertisement. “We do feel that this ad is a very responsible approach to talking about a medicine, and clearly a medicine that is an important thing for many, many patients to be thinking about and talking to their doctors about,” said Dr. Gail Cawkwell, the senior medical director for Pfizer.
Dr. Cawkwell said the accusations by Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, were wrong in several respects.
She said that his complaint, in a letter to the F.D.A., suggested, for example, that the ad compared Celebrex with over-the-counter medications, but that it never did. She also said that the ad clearly stated the gastrointestinal risks of Celebrex, while Dr. Wolfe suggested that those risks were played down.
Dr. Wolfe, in his letter to the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, said that the ad violated the law because it contained “false or misleading statements” that might lead consumers to underestimate the risks of Celebrex and use it instead of safer painkillers that are just as effective.
“The overall purpose of the ad is to make it appear, contrary to scientific evidence, that the cardiovascular dangers of Celebrex are not greater than those of any of the other NSAID painkillers,” the letter said, referring to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
An agency spokeswoman, Kimberly A. Rawlings, said that the group would review Dr. Wolfe’s complaint. “Upon review of the ad, we will take the appropriate action, if needed,” Ms. Rawlings said in an e-mail message.
In an interview, Dr. Wolfe said “the safest, in terms of cardiovascular risk, is naproxen” – a reference to an over-the-counter drug sold as Aleve and other brand names, as well as by prescription.
“There’s no question that Celebrex has an increased cardiovascular risk,” Dr. Wolfe said.
Celebrex and Vioxx belong to a category that are a subset of NSAID drugs – a category known as cox-2 – originally intended to avoid some of the potential for stomach irritation and other gastrointestinal side effects common with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
Clinical studies in patients did not show a protection against ulcers and bleeding with Celebrex.
Dr. Wolfe criticized the new Celebrex ad for suggesting that the drug is easier on the stomach than some over-the-counter painkillers.
In a recent article published in the journal Circulation, the American Heart Association found important differences in the risks of the drugs, although it said that all the drugs required more study.
Because of the differences, the heart association recommends a hierarchy for pain treatment of people with known cardiovascular disease or risk factors. Naproxen is the association’s preferred choice among NSAIDs. The group recommends that cox-2 drugs be the last choice, to be used for those people who fail to respond to the older NSAIDs or other drugs.
