No More Drug Ads

I had to laugh at an HBO video “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Marketing to Doctors.” But in addition to laughing, I wanted to scream. He uses humor to address a very serious problem regarding prescription drugs. Pharmaceutical companies advertise drugs on TV commercials and encourage the viewer to “ask your doctor if this drug is right for you.” It’s bad enough that pharmaceutical drug representatives try to buy influence by bringing lunch to the entire medical staff and giving very generous gifts at holidays. But it is irresponsible for the drug companies to market drugs directly to the public and attempt to manipulate doctors to prescribe a particular medicine. The American Medical Association voted to support an advertising ban on direct consumer advertising of prescription drugs and medical devices.

These ads make it seem as if it is as normal to choose a medicine the same way that you choose a brand of detergent. There are only two countries in the world that allow drug manufacturers to advertise directly to the consumers – United States and New Zealand.

We have become a society that too quickly reaches for a pill to solve our problems. In 2014, drug makers spent $4.5 billion on such advertising. Why? Because it works. The more we are told we need drugs, the more we’ll buy them. The ads push expensive treatments. This fuels high drug prices.

The ads are not always accurate. A study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that nearly 60 percent of prescription drug ads were misleading or false. They sometimes make claims that are unsubstantiated. The drug can be less effective, more expensive and risky.

But if companies don’t advertise, how will people know what to ask for? The point is, patients should not ask for a particular medicine. The manufacturer would like you to think it is smart to be informed about your health care and treatment. But here’s the thing: you are a patient, not a doctor. You are not trained to diagnose and treat medical problems. And a sixty-second advertisement does not inform you about your health care.

Here’s how it is supposed to work. A medical diagnosis is a process of determining which disease or condition explains a person’s symptoms within a context. Information is collected from a history and physical examination and sometimes includes diagnostic and laboratory tests. Diagnosis can be challenging because many signs and symptoms are nonspecific and have several different explanations. Over diagnosis is a problem that turns people into patients unnecessarily and can lead to economic waste and treatments that may cause harm. Once a diagnosis is reached, a treatment plan is developed. One part of a treatment plan might include medication, or perhaps not.

None of this is as simple as a 30 or 60 second advertisements would have you believe. Unless you are trained in the practice of medicine, don’t ask your doctor if this medicine is right for you. It is more appropriate for you and your doctor to discuss the benefits as well as potential problems with any course of treatment as well as use of certain medications. Let’s keep this out of the hands of the drug manufacturer.