Prescription Drug Advertising

The media has extreme power over consumers when it comes to prescription medications...

-Can manipulate public opinion about a drug: for the better or worse

Prescription Drug Advertising

-Manipulative propaganda techniques, ex. Bandwagon, transfer

Manipulate for the good or bad...

-Misappropriates spending

Shannon McGrath

Core 201

-Can lead to overprescribing of drugs

-Prozac: Newsweek scared the nation by associating the drug with suicide (Dr. Rosenbaum)

-Wastes a doctor's time in the office

References

Brownfield, E. D., Bernhardt, J. M., Phan, J. L., Williams,

M. V., & Parker, R. M. (2004). Direct-to-Consumer drug advertisements on network television: An exploration of quantity, frequency, and placement. Journal of Health Communications, 9, 491-497. doi: 10.1080/10810730490523115

Fisher, M. A. (2003). Physicians and the pharmaceutical

industry: A dysfunctional relationship. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 46 (2), 254-272. doi:10.1353/pbm.2003.0019

Frosch, D. L., Krueger, P. M., Hornik, R. C., Cronholm, P.

F., Barg, F. K. (2007). Creating a demand for prescription drugs: A content analysis of television direct-to-consumer advertising. Annals of Family Medicine, 5 (1), 6-13. doi:10.1370/afm.611

La Barbera, C. P. (2012). Irresponsible reminders: Ethical

aspects of direct-to-consumer drug advertising. Ethics & Medicine, 28 (3), 95-112.

Mintzes, B. (2012). Advertising of prescription-only

medicines to the public: Does evidence of benefit counterbalance harm?. Annual Review of Public Health, 33, 259-277. doi: 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031811-124540

Rosenbaum, J. F. (1994). Clinical trial by media: the

Prozac story. In H. I. Schwartz (Ed.), The influences of special interests, the media, and the courts on psychotropic drugs and electroconvulsive therapy (pp. 3-28). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.

Rosenthal, M. B., Berndt, E. R., Donohue, J.M., Frank, R.

G., & Epstein, A.M. (2002). Promotion of prescription drugs to consumers. The New England Journal of Medicine,346 (7), 498-505.

Wilkes, M. S., Bell, R. A., & Kravitz, R. L. (2000). Direct-

to-Consumer prescription drug advertising: Trends, impact, and implications. Health Affairs, 19 (2), 110-128.

-This leaves people untreated

Creating a Need

Wasting a Doctor's Time

Rosenthal and colleagues (2002) point out that, “Advertising targeted at consumers almost surely adds to physician’s workloads by requiring them to help patients interpret the information presented by advertisers” (p. 503).

-Even if patient's do not wrongly receive prescriptions, doctor's must still explain the process to them and why that drug is unnecessary.

Types of Propaganda

Overprescribing Drugs

-Bandwagon appeal: Many are already taking that drug, or commercial shows peer approval for having taking it

-Study done by Frosch: 77.7% of commercials showed people be rewarded for choosing to take a prescription drug

-More advertisements= more requests for drugs= more likely to prescribe them

-Mintzes (2012) studied 152 females asking for various antidepressant medications

-Overall, "more than 50% of the doctors assumed the patients had diagnosed themselves correctly based on the DTCA" (p. 265).

Types of Propaganda

-Spending money on the wrong areas: Still no cure for many diseases

-Transfer: Brand names and symbols transfer emotions/opinions

-Yet, as Fisher (2003) explained, a company can take an already marketed drug and modify some of the inactive ingredients yet call it a "new drug"

-La Barbera called this to be like a business, not an industry of treatment and solutions

Ex. Lunesta:

-Luna for moon, symbol of the night

Frivolous Spending

-Spending on commercial advertising for prescription medication rose at least 1.7 billion dollars from 1996-2000 and has continued to increase

-Pharmaceutical companies spend all of this money to prove to consumers that there is a drug that they supposedly "need"