Direct-To-Consumer Drug Advertising: Ethical Or Not?

Despite this, the industry did not alter its ways, maintaining that its ad campaigns were "educational," and that people were able to make their own decisions about what they purchased (Payer 66). However, it is evident that the advertisements produced by the pharmaceutical industry are designed for the very purpose of making it difficult for people to make these decisions independently. This marketing produces a large number of often deceptive, misleading tactics which have a large influence on both consumers and medical practitioners. The chief beneficiaries of this marketing are not the consumers but the pharmaceutical companies themselves.

There are proponents of DTC prescription drug ads. They argue that “the ads inform patients about diseases and possible treatments, encourage people to seek medical advice, help remove stigma associated with medical conditions, and provide needed sales revenue to fund costly research and development (R&D) of new drugs (Drug Ads ProCon.org).” On the flip side opponents argue “that DTC drug ads misinform patients, promote drugs before long-term safety-profiles can be known, medicalize and stigmatize normal conditions and bodily functions like wrinkles and low testosterone, waste valuable medical appointment time, and have led to our society’s overuse of prescription drugs (Drug Ads ProCon.org).”

Advertisements are everywhere. They are a major part of modern day society. Whether it be a television commercial, an internet banner, or a billboard, advertisements influence people of all ages, but they affect a certain age group much more than others. Children ranging from toddlers to teenagers are exposed to thousands upon thousands of advertisements each year. Some of these advertisements are damaging to children, while others are a positive influence. Advertisements can either be used as a tool or a weapon. Food advertisements and manipulation strategies are both positive and negative, and how companies use them decides whether or not marketing to children is ethical.

New Zealand is the only other developed nation in the world where prescription drugs are advertised directly to consumers. The American pharmaceutical industry used to abide by a term “ethical marketing,” meaning that drug companies could only market to physicians. On the other hand, there is a valid argument for allowing direct-to-consumer drug advertisements as the flow of information and transparency are beneficial. However, there obviously needs to be some checks and balances. This experiment began with a print advertisement in 1981 in Reader’s Digest and the first TV ad took place in 1983. At that time, the FDA had several rules in place requiring companies to offer a fair and balanced presentation. In sum, this was a responsible era of advertising.

Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs has attracted several controversies, especially from people opposed to it. Some of the major arguments that have been raised include the possibility of the advertising to be a blatant manipulation of the public, the huge potential benefits to pharmaceutical companies and significant damages to the health care system. However, direct-to-consumer advertising of prescriptions drugs should be carried out properly because the advantages of this measure outweigh its disadvantages. One of the major reasons for the advertisement of

So to conclude, although both positives and negatives are associated with DTC prescription drug ads, the negatives outweigh the positives because of the detrimental effects they can have on the consumer. The ads misinform patients, stigmatize normal conditions, have led to the overuse of prescription drugs, and promote drugs before long-term safety information can be known. DTC prescription drug ads are endangering the viewers in our society. In the long run, banning DTC prescription drug ads, or at the very least increasing regulation, would be best for the

Her main focus was on the television (T.V.) advertising of medicine that is done in this country. She finds it highly unethical that pharmaceutical companies advertise drugs that are needed by patients. She further explained that it is also the way which marketing is conducted, “showing cheery people with fabulous hair on sunny days” (F. McClure, personal communication, October 14, 2013). The general public is naive to the possible side effects of these drugs and/or do not grasp the severity of many of them. Most people are looking at the pleasing visuals in these commercials, therefore they do not notice the side effects of the drugs, because the notices are in small print or run through so quickly they are incomprehensible. The viewers want what they see and ask their physicians for these drugs by name. In turn, doctors order the drugs; the companies grow bigger and market more drugs. It is a perpetual cycle, McClure expounds, and one that she and many of her cohorts wish would stop.

The readers of both Moss and Watters are introduced to the manipulative skills corporations hold within their mega-marketing and idea processing backgrounds. Both authors introduce their mega-marketing topics as a negative and chilling idea, in which the products that big corporations are trying to sell are related to something much simpler in terms of the effect’s it will have on the human body. For instance, Watters states “these practices are the medical equivalent of what real estate agents do to sell vacation time shares” (514). In this statement, he is comparing the selling objectives of drugs to vacation homes, and how corporations can use the same tactics in order to mega-market and sell their products. Watters is bringing up the idea of drug companies encouraging and advertising the use of antidepressants, as they are trying to change the morals and thoughts of diseases and drug usages of other countries such as Japan. Moss would agree with Watters’ idea of corporations using their persuasive actions on consumers. In his writing, he states that the world and “culture [has] become upset by the tobacco companies advertising to children, but we sit idly by while the food companies do the very same thing” (Moss 260). Both food and drug corporations take a stand in mega-marketing, pushing their ideas into the minds of consumers. Although they do not focus on separate beliefs of

This paper is concern with legal and ethical issues in advertising, marketing, regulations and intellectual property of product safety with respect to PharmaCARE which is a pharmaceutical company. The paper includes the information regarding drug companies, Direct to Consumers (DTC) marketing. Next we will

America's population is aging, leading to the need for more elder care services. One service most individuals will need at one time or another is legal aid. A person may need assistance with estate planning and administration, guardianship, conservatorship and commitment matters and long term care matters. Attorneys offering elder care services need to ensure individuals needing this type of help know where to turn for assistance and direct mail can be of great help in getting the word out about one's practice.

This advertisement, created in “2016”, was designed for publication in the US, as demonstrated by the English words and the American dollar sign. It targets an audience of parents in an effort to support the “movement against prescription drug abuse” by teenagers, namely “[the audience’s] children.” The advertisement uses a strong visual metaphor, an emotional appeal, and persuasive techniques to convey the message that prescription drugs are too widely accessible, and that parents should take action to decrease the drugs’ accessibility and therefore decrease prescription drug abuse and make their children safer.

If it were illegal to air these advertisements, the numbers of certain medications prescribed would decrease significantly. As shown by the law, direct-to-consumer advertisements (DTC ads) are illegal in the United Kingdom. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) medication gets prescribed 25 times more frequently in the United States than in the United Kingdom. This shows a correlation between the ads and the prescriptions being written (Stange). Drug companies advertise on television so they can successfully pitch directly to their patients. The reason they do this is because these medications are not nearly as good for a patient as they sound, therefore doctors do not prescribe them often. Without DTC advertising, people would not be able to self diagnose and convince themselves that they need a medication for a condition that they do not clinically have. A primitive example for this is adderall, the drug prescribed for patients with ADHD. Other places, such as the United Kingdom, allow doctors to make the calls and diagnoses, so only the patients with the disorder receive the medication. A common argument against this is that 64% of physicians surveyed concluded that these drug advertisements encourage potential

Each day we are bombarded with advertisements from a plethora of corporations in every waking moment of our lives. Advertising agencies have become so advanced at what they do, that often times we may not even realize we are being advertised a product. This raises an interesting ethical dilemma over a certain type of advertising: persuasive advertising. Philosophers, economists, and business professionals have debated over whether or not persuasive advertising is an immoral violation of the autonomy of consumers. While not all forms of advertising are in and of themselves certainly immoral, persuasive advertising is particularly reprehensible due to the fact that not only does it manipulate our unconscious desires of which we are completely unaware in order to sell a product, but it also routinely leads us to act against our own best interest, thus overriding our autonomy.

The author surveyed people that used different pharmacies located in different economic neighborhoods. Some were poor neighborhoods and some wealthier. These areas were defined by the Australian bureau of statistics. What they were asked was how they responded to a mock prescription medication, however, this fake advertisement was based on the advertisement for Nexium and just changed out the name but kept the same advertisement structure.There were a few key findings in this survey.The main finding was that minorities seemed to respond positively to Direct to consumer advertisements of prescriptions or DTCA. Another key finding is the idea of low-income consumers having a higher probability to request the advertised persicription, and also

What facts would you want to know before making a judgement on the ethical appropriateness of direct consumer advertising of drugs?