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medpundit |
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Thursday, December 05, 2002Since 1997, the report said, the F.D.A. "has issued repeated regulatory letters to several pharmaceutical companies, including 14 to GlaxoSmithKline, 6 to Schering Corporation and 5 to Merck & Company." Some companies, it said, "have received multiple regulatory letters over time for new advertisements promoting the same drug." There must not be any teeth to those truth in advertising laws about drugs, or the companies wouldn't ignore the letters like that. The ads are certainly working: The study estimates that at least 8.5 million Americans each year request and receive prescriptions for specific drugs after seeing or hearing advertisements for those products. You might ask, "Well, why do those doctors prescribe the drugs in the first place?" Because it's very hard to dissuade a patient whose mind is made up about the superiority of a drug. Most of the time there's no good reason to deny them their first choice other than cost. People who don't pay for their own drugs don't care about that. In fact, if a doctor tries to sell them on a less expensive alternative, they're immediately suspicious that he cares about the insurance company more than he cares about them. It's a no-win situation for the insurance companies, and a win-win situation for the drug companies. posted by Sydney on 12/05/2002 06:03:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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