Victory music plays as cancer patients go camping, gardening and watching fireworks. Opdivo + Yervoy advertisingCombination immunotherapy to treat metastatic melanoma and lung cancer. Skyrizi’s advertisementIn “Atopic Dermatitis,” a treatment for conditions such as psoriasis vulgaris, patients are shown snorkeling and biking, showing off rash-free elbows, while patients with type 2 diabetes dance and sing in office cubicles. Paying tribute to the JardianceMedication now comes with celebrity endorsements. Who wouldn’t want a migraine medication endorsed by Lady Gaga? Nulltech ODT?
Pharmaceutical advertising has been widespread on television since the late 1990s and has expanded to the internet and social media. The United States and New Zealand are the only countries where direct pharmaceutical advertising to consumers is legal. (European Union Lady GagaThe company’s Instagram posts promoting its migraine medication were visible across the African continent and were cited as a flagrant violation of the ban on direct-to-consumer advertising.
The manufacturer $1 billion per month In recent years, advertising has been attracting attention. Last year, 3 of the top 5 It was the pharmaceutical companies that were spending money on TV ads.
Such advertising was banned until 1997, when the FDA reluctantly allowed drug ads on television as long as they accurately described the drugs’ true benefits and risks, including a list of potential side effects.
With these guardrails in place, no one thought advertising would take hold. But the FDA I underestimated cunning. The pharmaceutical industry has invented a new art form: finding ways to make their products seem like welcome necessities while minimizing their ineffectiveness and risks.
According to a 2023 survey, among the best-selling medicines, Minimum additional profit level They tend to spend more on advertising to patients than to doctors. “We are concerned that direct-to-consumer advertising could be used to drive demand for less effective drugs or more affordable or cost-effective alternatives,” Michael DiStefano, a professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Colorado and an author of the study, said in an email.
In fact, more than 50% of Medicare spending on drugs from 2016 to 2018 was for advertised drugs. 10 types of medicine The Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration’s goal Drug price negotiations These drugs are among the drugs with the highest direct-to-consumer advertising spending this year.
In recent years, the government has tried to make prescription drug ads more accurate and easily understood about their benefits and harms, but the results have been disappointing. For example, when President Donald Trump’s administration tried to require drug companies to quote prices for treatments above $35 in television ads, the industry said it would not allow them to do so. took it to federal courtThey argued that the mandate violated the First Amendment rights of drug companies. Big Pharma Wins.
Last November, The FDA Advertisements must give consumers a “non-misleading impression about the drug being advertised.” The agency said the information must be presented in a “clear, conspicuous and neutral manner.” Advertisements must avoid “audio or visual elements that may interfere with consumer comprehension” and “text information must be presented in an easy-to-read manner.”
But the language is disappointingly vague. What does “neutral” or “not misleading” mean? Do prohibited audiovisual elements include people hiking or dancing to upbeat music? How fast or slow should subtitles listing side effects flash across the screen? The FDA has no police power to decide how to interpret the language.
I requested an interview with the agency to clarify its plans, but instead received a three-page email that left me worried the barrage of pharmaceutical ads would continue.
The company said ads aren’t reviewed before airing unless the drug company voluntarily submits them, because “it is the drug company’s responsibility to ensure they comply with the rules.” How do they find ads that violate the rules? Often, it’s through consumer complaints or when drug company staff see booths at conferences with misleading information, the email said.
The FDA’s watchdog, the Office of Advertising and Promotional Labeling, “currently has nine full-time employees whose small portion of their work includes reviewing DTC promotional communications and other activities,” the agency wrote in an email. If an ad is deemed noncompliant, the FDA can notify the manufacturer by sending an “untitled warning letter.” Just 32 letters were sent in total from 2019 to 2024.
The FDA: Malicious advertising programs To help physicians identify false or misleading advertising directed at them; 1 hour course The hotline also features case studies and offers doctors an easy way to report abuse by calling 855-RX-BADAD, but it remains to be seen whether they will use it, as doctors also dislike such advertising, and authorities are woefully understaffed to monitor it.
The FDA launched a parallel site aimed at helping consumers better determine whether ads follow the rules and decide whether a drug is “right for them.” Medical knowledge required Something most people don’t have.
The Federal Trade Commission, which oversees advertising in other areas from banking to contact lenses, has been more aggressive. File a lawsuit to stop In recent years, the company has filed lawsuits over what it considers to be fraudulent or misleading claims. Unsubstantiated claims about stem cell therapy Arthritis and False or misleading information As for some health insurance plans, the commission has no jurisdiction over drug advertising sold directly to consumers, a spokesman said.
In the past, when medicines were sold by “fake drug” salesmen,NumberPsychologist of the Century William James scoffed. “The abomination of medical advertising,” they wrote, “whose authors will be treated as public enemies and will not be tolerated.” Of course, maturing scientific understanding and the medicines we use today relieve suffering and even save lives call for a more nuanced approach.
Common sense and standards of truth in advertising like those we apply in other fields might be a good first step. Consider an ad that promises advanced cancer patients a “chance to live longer.” A more truthful ad would be one that is based on ambiguous research findings or, like the widow of one patient who was attracted to the ad, In an editorial he writes: “There’s a small chance that people with advanced lung cancer could live a few extra months,” and that’s probably no hiking or going to the beach.
A little common sense truth in advertising would see many of these ads disappear. An email from the FDA said the agency is working with the Duke Margolis Institute for Health Policy Research and others to “further develop” its policy and guidance documents.
Gerald AndersonA health policy professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that at the very least, drug ads should be required to carry prominent risk warnings like those found on cigarette packs. “The drugs you see on TV and social media are probably not as good as other drugs,” he adds. Or at the very least, they’re more expensive.
Remember that media advertising for tobacco was ubiquitous before it was banned as a dangerous product by an act of Congress in 1971. Certainly, in the case of pharmaceutical advertising, some harm many people with their side effects (and costs), but they also greatly help some people.
But watching the Democratic National Convention last month, I wondered: Can’t someone get in politics and put an end to this endless drug advertising, as happens in most other developed countries? Companies encouraging patients to “ask their doctor” and prescribe drugs they don’t need isn’t just an issue of truth in advertising or a bust to government and individual budgets; it’s a public health issue.
