Maybe it’s our imagination, but it seems there are so many ads on the tube lately that an hour-long show is relegated to about 20 minutes of story line. The rest is devoted completely to advertising.
You can bet Big Pharma is buying up its fair share.
The $300 billion-a-year US pharmaceutical industry spent $3.1 billion on advertising prescription drugs directly to consumers (DTC) in 2012, the latest figures available, according to Pro/Con Org., a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that tracts controversial issues for “critical thinking, education and informed citizenship.”
Proponents of the drug ads contend they inform consumers about what’s available on the market, they encourage them to seek the advice of their health practitioners, and they provide needed money from sales to seed medical research.
Opponents contend the DTC drug ads misinform consumers, promote drugs that may or may not actually help, stigmatize inevitable age-related bodily functions like wrinkles or low testosterone, and contribute to society’s overuse of prescription medicine.
For sure, just listening to the litany of side effects associated with most of the medicines touted on TV could cause monumental headaches if nothing else. It seems there are more caveats than benefits. The more gullible among us might throw caution to the wind and say “what the heck, I’m going to ask my doc about that drug;” the more discerning might be turned off entirely…might even turn off the television completely.
Drug advertising is not new to this century. In the 1700-1800s, “patent medicines” were advertised in newspapers and flyers as “cures for just about everything that ails you”—with a particular emphasis on “female complaints” which ranged from PMS, to ovarian troubles, inflammation and ulceration. And, as a side benefit, some of the same drugs were advertised to cure headaches, insomnia, depression and more.
In the 1900s, drugs were separated into two classes: “Ethical Drugs” that were listed in the US Pharmacopoeia by the American Medical Association—drugs like quinine, aspirin and even morphine—and “Patent Medications” which were mostly H2O with a few squirts of alcohol, opium or other totally-unregulated ingredients. Names like Kick-a-poo Indian Sagwa and Hamlin’s Wizard Oil come to mind.
It wasn’t until 1905 that the AMA established the Council of Pharmacy and Chemistry that was responsible for setting standards for evaluating “ethical drugs.” “Quack” medications were on their own.
Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 that regulated product labeling. However, it did not regulate advertisements. In 1914, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was created to regulate interstate advertising, but did not address drug ads in medical journals which ran freely.
Some standout facts according to ProCon:
• Bayer Pharmaceuticals sold heroin as an over-the-counter remedy for coughs in the early 1900s.
• The US Food and Drug Administration did not begin to regulate prescription drug advertisements until Oct. 10, 1962 with the passage of the Kefauver Harris Amendments.
• Every $1 spent advertising prescription drugs is estimated to increase drug retail sales by $4.20.
• The United States and New Zealand are the only two countries where direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs is legal.
• As of May 2011, the average number of prescriptions for new drugs with DTC advertising was nine times greater than prescriptions for new drugs without DTC ads.
A story in Forbes a couple of years ago stated that the goal of the pharmaceutical industry to advertise was to “provide patients with information about new medicines and treatments for diseases that were previously untreatable. Furthermore, it believed that advertising encouraged patients to open a dialogue with their doctors about medical conditions and illnesses – communication that might not have previously existed.”
Big Pharma used the relatively-new illness (at the time) of fibromyalgia to build its case for advertising. There was as yet no medicine available to treat patients with the painful condition. By advertising the FDA’s recently-approved drugs via TV ads, patients were informed and encouraged to visit their doctors to see if they were candidates for these breakthrough medicines.
The Forbes article went on to show the downside of so much advertising: “…the negatives that have evolved from TV ads were starting to outweigh the intended benefits. First of all, many consumers found the commercials offensive, pointing specifically to ads for erectile dysfunction. As a result, the FDA required that, in terms of content and placement, television advertisements should be targeted to avoid audiences that were not age-appropriate for the messages involved.”
Fast forward to 2015, and apparently that little requirement is out the window. There are so many ads for Viagra and Cialis in prime-time, day-time and night-time viewing that the ads are becoming offensive even to those who feel they need the medications.
Now it appears Big Pharma may be working harder to sell consumers products than to develop new ones.
“Prescription drug companies aren’t putting a lot of resources toward new, groundbreaking medication,” according to a recent report in BMJ, a medical journal based in London. “Instead, it’s more profitable for them simply to create a bunch of products that are only slightly different from drugs already on the market,” the authors say.
“Pharmaceutical research and development turns out mostly minor variations on existing drugs,” the authors continue. “Sales from these drugs generate steady profits throughout the ups and downs of blockbusters coming off patents.”
The authors go on to say that for every dollar pharmaceutical companies spend on basic research, $19 goes toward promotion and marketing.
Apparently all the advertising is working. Drug company revenues climbed more than $200 billion in the years between 1995 and 2010, according to the website MinnPost. Meanwhile, more than one in five Americans aged 50 and up has had to cut down on dosages or switch to cheaper generic drugs because the cost of medication is so high.
For Big Pharma, ad spending may just be the cost of doing business as usual, but for consumers and TV watchers, it may be “way too much information at inconvenient times—not to mention interruptions to story lines of favorite shows–for the benefits perceived.”
What do you think?
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