Medicine Fueled by Marketing Intensified Trouble for Pain Pills
“Pfizer spent almost $71.2 million on Celebrex, up about 55 percent from almost $46.1 million spent in the same period a year ago, according to data from the research firm TNS Media Intelligence/CMR. The effect of such advertising, many doctors say, was to drive to consumer demand for COX-2 drugs far beyond the bulk of those patients who really benefit from them.
Dr. Elizabeth Tindall, the president of the American College of Rheumatology, a professional group, said her group believed that COX-2’s are an appropriate treatment for patients at high risk of stomach problems. But ‘we weren’t saying to anyone if you have a 23-year-old with ankle pain put them on this drug,’ said Dr. Tindall, who practices in Portland, Ore. ‘That was the impression that the TV advertising was giving.'”
Again, an article implicating DTC advertising as a culprit to the COX-2 mess. A reader commented on this issue:
I do not think that opposing DTC ads is in our or our patients’ best interests. Opposition is rather part of the Conspiracy to Keep Us Poor and Stupid. I don’t think for a minute that your opposition is motivated by such a desire, but I do believe that we can use this to educate our patients. When a patient comes into my office requesting a high dollar advertised med that is not indicated, I have a 30 second, thus far completely successful, spiel advising the patient that the ads from Pfizer or wherever are every bit as self interested and accurate as the ads from Miller beer or the Gap. In fact, due to the limited amount of FDA oversight of DTC ads, I think that they are a lot more reliable than press releases from AIDS activist groups. As disgusting as some of the ads are (I’m thinking Levitra here), the DTC ads do serve a useful purpose of informing civilians that it’s OK and possibly useful to ask your doc about problems that they have for which there are new therapies on the market.
The key is “good information” – and that is what is hardly being presented to the consumer. I certainly agree that the more information patients have, the better. If the information presented was based on sound evidenced-based principles, I would definitely cheer it on. However, this is simply not the case.
