Inverse benefits due to drug marketing undermine patient safety and public health

[Celebration]

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-inverse-benefits-due-drug-undermine.html

Published online Thursday, Jan. 13 in the American Journal of Public Health, the article explores recent withdrawals of blockbuster drugs due to safety concerns and finds a clear pattern of physician-focused marketing tactics that ultimately exposed patients to a worsening benefit-to-harm ratio. Potential patient safety and public health implications include unnecessary exposure to adverse side effects, high medical costs and competition for scarce resources.

"This is not a random occurrence, but rather a repeating, planned scenario in which drugs, discovered with good science for a specific set of patients, are marketed to a larger population as necessary, beneficial and safer than other alternatives," said co-author Dr. Howard Brody, a professor and director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at UTMB Health. "Marketers are just doing their jobs. However, the reality is that for most new drugs, safety and efficacy are scientifically proven for only a small subset of patients. It's time for physicians to take a stand and not prescribe them so readily."


..........snipe

"While we looked only at marketing directed toward physicians, direct-to-consumer advertising plays a critical role in driving demand for a drug by patients who fall outside the group that might truly need it, and pressuring physicians to prescribe it more readily," said Brody. "European countries are now debating whether to join the U.S. and New Zealand in allowing DTC advertising and we hope that our work could help inform that discussion."

[truedelphi]

1. K & R.

Ah, but the real reason that the Big Pharma entities advertise new drugs for new ailments 24/7 is this one - that way, the Big Pharmaceuticals hold the power in terms of what gets discussed on the news outlets.

Ever hear the term "Single Payer Universal Health Care" during last summer's health care reform debate? Not on your local or national news wires, you didn't.

Mission accomplished.