Pharma consumer advertising: What’s the real cost?

It seems the FDA is looking for input on how drug companies explain the side effects of their drugs in direct-to-consumer advertising.

But the pharmaceutical industry is requesting that only “reasonable consumers” need to be addressed about those side effects. Anyone that doesn’t act “reasonably,” well, so sorry.

Seriously?

About the only reasonable thing that can be said about direct-to-consumer advertising are three things:

1. They are horribly expensive, with the US shunting over $2 billion dollars annually per pharmaceutical company to the advertising industry.
2. It should also be noted that the FDA has a huge conflict of interest with the pharmaceutical industry, since it receives large sums from them to review their new drug applications.
3. Note, too, that only two countries in the world permit these ads: the US and New Zealand.

I find it interesting that I can’t get a $0.10 pen from the drug companies any longer, but our patients can get billions of dollars in advertising given to them “free” without any concern about what this is costing our health care system.