UK Group Sees Disaster in Direct-To-consumer Drug Advertising
So they could see it in England but not here in America…direct to consumer advertising, while a major source of funding for newspapers, magazines and TV, has led to a substantial increase in pharmaceutical sales. Common sense would suggest that advertising should have no impact whatsoever in pharmaceutical use. But no one ever said common sense was common in medicine…
(article) The Consumers’ Association warned Tuesday that if the European Commission relaxes rules banning direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising in Europe, “disastrous consequences” would follow for the UK National Health Service, leading to spiralling drugs budgets. In a new report, “Promotion of prescription drugs: public health or private profit?” — due to be published on July 18 — the association says EC proposals to relax the rules on providing information on drugs for AIDS, diabetes and asthma will lead to a US-style boom in pharmaceutical marketing targeted at consumers. The consumer group has written to EC officials and the UK Government, urging them to put “public interest before the demands of the pharmaceutical industry.” It argues that the introduction of DTC pharmaceutical advertising in the US helped fuel an 84% increase in drug bills between 1993 and 1998. Louise Ansari, spokesperson for the Consumer’s Association, said that DTC drug advertising had “had a monumental impact on drug budgets in both New Zealand and the US.”