The main question is... why does a drug company need to make ANY direct contact with consumers? These drugs are powerful... powerful enough that they can not be purchased over the counter. "Ask your doctor, if ____ is right for you." Its a prescription... it must be prescribed to me... by someone who has more info than a 30 second commercial can give. Shouldn't my doctor tell me if I need the drug?
Drug companies claim they just want to inform the public... but advertisements aren't meant to inform... they're meant to persuade. Most people who NEED long term medication are either old or infirmed... not young and attractive actors. The first Viagra commercials targeted older men, had a serious tone, and featured people like Bob Dole (the true market of need), but as other companies came around fighting for marketshare, Viagra followed suit and went with the "its a party" advertising, marketing the drug for something it was not approved by the FDA for. A lot of commercials that deal with products for the old or ill use young actors to market their drugs to a wider base. That is to say... you THOUGHT Viagra was just for old people... you can use it to.
Modern marketing of prescription drugs began in 1997. In 1900, the American Medical Association (AMA) tried to stop the advertising of drugs with magical claims... things that would sound something like... Maddame Turner's Magic Healing Elixir. The AMA urged medical journals not to publish ads that "advertised directly to laity." The American Medical Association recognized that these drugs were too specialized and complicated for laymen to understand without their doctor.
It was a practice that stood in place for almost a century. After a 1983 British ad about ibuprofen, the FDA saw the potential for danger and conducted a study about television ads about medicine and their affect on viewers. They found that even listing the side effects... for many people, the commercial was a reassurance... a reaffirmation of approval... not a warning against. So, the FDA said that drugs ads could be done, HOWEVER... the ad must list all side effects and conditions VERBATIM.
Whatever the warnings that were printed on the packaging, they must be read in their entirety during the commercial. So, as of 1983, it was legal, but with that restriction, noone ran commercials. The FDA would then compromise on what were called "reminder" ads. If you ran a commercial about a prescription drug, but you didn't tell what that drug was suppose to cure, you didn't have to tell what the side effects could be. It was purely a "reminder." Putting the name of the drug in your mind. Only a few years ago, it was not uncommon to see ambiguous drug commercials showing happy people... running through fields... or skipping and whistling through a meadow... but the commercial didn't tell you why they were now happy. That is a reminder ad.
Doctors started getting flooded with calls from their patients about drugs they didn't need, because they didn't know what they were. That type of impulse response alone should be red flag about marketing pharmaceuticals.
August 12th, 1997... the FDA revised its guidelines. TV and radio commercials could give details about their drugs without giving the full details of side effects. They were now only required to give some level of warning as you will hear (spedily recited) at the end of drug commercials these days. Prior to the change, it was impossible for them to run a commercial in less than 60 seconds reading all the warnings from the prescription package label. Now the warnings, which were abbreviated, could now be given in consumer friendly speak, rather than pharmaceutical verbage.
Not surprisingly, prescription drug use has skyrocketed in recent years (blogged about that recently). With more marketing creating more prescription drug users... were we undermedicated in the early 1990's...? or are overmedicated today? What percentage of these drug users are people taking medicines they truly didn't need, but pressed their doctor until their doctor allowed them the drug the requested?
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