One thing that struck me upon moving back to the US in 2016 was the number of medical commercials on TV. Before 2016, we’d last visited the US in 2012, and while we did not stay glued to the TV then, we did watch some but never noticed this many drug ads. Same with our next-previous visit in 2005.
It strikes me as absurd to start mentioning drugs to my doctor, who I trust will know which ones are best anyway. I don’t know what I would think if I mentioned I saw an ad for Dug X on TV and he were to say, “Hey, that sounds interesting.”
Is this a sign of our aging society? Is it really so sudden, or was I just not paying attention?
You just weren’t paying attention. Ads for drugs have been rampant for probably 20 years, unfortunately. I have heard that the US and I think Australia are way behind the times given most other countries won’t allow TV drug ads. Wish we’d catch up - a huge part of our out of control drug prices are due to advertising costs.
We pharmacists HATE HATE HATE them. :smack: :rolleyes: :mad: I mean, really, you don’t think your oncologist knows about Opdivo (a drug I’ve heard is really nasty)?
I largely stopped watching TV roughly around 1982 anyway, so if it’s been going on for 20 years, I’m not surprised I didn’t notice it. But I’m sure I didn’t see it in 2005 or 2012 here. I’m guessing Thailand prohibits such ads, because the strongest “drug” advertised on TV there is some over-the-counter cold remedy.
I guess we do watch more TV now. Our place in Waikiki came fully furnished including two TVs hooked up to cable, so if nothing else we tend to have CNN on in the background.
"Canada is failing to enforce its law banning advertising for prescription drugs, a new review indicates.
“Direct-to-consumer ads for prescription drugs are generally prohibited under Canada’s Food and Drugs Regulation. A loophole in its interpretation allows reminder ads that name a product but not its use. For example, TV ads for the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra don’t name its purpose.”
It’s from 2014, but it looks like you’re mostly correct, FinsToTheLeft.
I get some dark amusement when ads for Pradexa or Xarelto are immediately followed by lawyer ads touting class action lawsuits against Pradexa and Xarelto.
In the US, we have a similar rule. If you don’t mention the drug name or you don’t mention what the drug treats, you don’t have to list off the heinous side effects.
The drug companies took advantage of this by filming two ads with the same actors and the same scenery and running them 30 seconds apart. The first ad sounded like a PSA: “Suffering from phlembosis? Your doctor has a new treatment that can help you. Call your doctor and ask about the new treatment for phlembosis. You can end your suffering today!” The second ad, was obviously with the same actors and scenery: “Call your doctor and ask about Xenovubitol. See if Xenovubitol is right for you” with no mention of what Xenovubitol does. Neither ad had to list the horrid side effects of Xenovubitol.
The FDA eventual banned these sorts of paired ads.
Let’s say you have a chronic condition for which there was no treatment or for which there was a poor treatment. You’ve had it half your life and just resigned yourself to living with it.
Someone comes up with a cure for it. But the government bans disseminating this information directly to patients.
Should people call up their pharmacist every year with a list of symptoms and ask “Is there any (new) cure for this yet?” Even if you think they should, what is the likelihood anybody will?
Yes, I’m sure that people asking you about new drugs is annoying and usually a waste of your time. But I can’t be in favor of censorship to keep new drug information away from the public (or at least from the vast majority of the public that doesn’t read medical journals). Yes, some people have regular physicians whom they see every year for most of their lives and who will sit down with them and go over their health history to see if there are any new developments. But a whole lot of people don’t regularly visit their physicians and have to go to see whoever is in their current employer’s insurance network, not the kindly old doctor who has been taking care of them since they were born. And even the kindly old doctor has to push patients through in a rush in order to make ends meet with falling insurance reimbursements.
I’m sure that someone could say “But you can just search for medical information on the internet.” Isn’t what people find on the internet just as annoying?
I’m sorry but I can’t support keep medical information away from patients.
True, but asking your pharmacist about a new prescription medication is useless. They can’t give it to you without a prescription from a physician.
I work for a company that manages pharmacy benefits for other companies. I’m constantly amazed at how pharmaceutical companies can gouge consumers. For example, one heavily promoted drug costs $2400 per month for a prescription. The drug is literally a combination of two over-the-counter medications that can be purchased for about $25 a month.
I think the idea is that pharmacists, who have much more knowledge of drug interactions and are required to get continuing education about new drugs, will be more familiar with new drugs than a general practitioner. However, very few people have a personal pharmacist that they consult with; most people are on drug plans that either service through franchise outlets with a rotating cast of pharmacists, or are prescription-by-mail with a call line that assures you’ll never get anyone who is more than cursorily familiar with your needs as a patient. And, as you note, a physician actually has to write a script, which they will often do based only upon the glossy pamplet that a pharma company rep provided along with lunch or baseball tickets.
There are a lot of things wrong with the for-profit health care system but the almost unregulated shilling by the pharma industry, and especially for off-label use of drugs for which efficacy is unknown and risks are often poorly stated, is one of the biggest issues, especially when the FDA is understaffed and undermined in regulatory capacity.
When the allergy drug Zyrtec was introduced, the first round of TV ads showed a healthy-looking actor climbing a big stone cliff. At the top, he stood up, raised his arms, and bellowed the name of the drug. No mention of the product’s purpose, so there was no fast-talking voice-over to tell us all the possible side effects.
More recently, ads for Prevagen, a drug for memory loss, tell us it’s made from a substance “originally discovered in jellyfish.” That’s reassuring, I guess, because everybody knows jellyfish never forget anything. :rolleyes:
Well, no. They should ask their doctor if anything new has come to the market. Anybody with a chronic condition should be seeing their doctor annually for monitoring anyway.
I found an article from 2008 saying that drug companies were already spending twice as much then on ads as R&D, so it’s definitely not newer a phenomena then 2012.
:rolleyes: