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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday November 18 2015, @06:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the how-will-we-find-the-newest-ED-drugs dept.

AP reports that the American Medical Association has called for a ban on direct-to-consumer ads for prescription drugs and implantable medical devices, saying they contribute to rising costs and patients' demands for inappropriate treatment. According to data cited in an AMA news release, ad dollars spent by drugmakers have risen to $4.5 billion in the last two years, a 30 percent increase. Physicians cited concerns that a growing proliferation of ads is driving demand for expensive treatments despite the clinical effectiveness of less costly alternatives. "Today's vote in support of an advertising ban reflects concerns among physicians about the negative impact of commercially-driven promotions, and the role that marketing costs play in fueling escalating drug prices," said AMA Board Chair-elect Patrice A. Harris, M.D., M.A. "Direct-to-consumer advertising also inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate."

The AMA also calls for convening a physician task force and launching an advocacy campaign to promote prescription drug affordability by demanding choice and competition in the pharmaceutical industry, and greater transparency in prescription drug prices and costs. Last month, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a report saying that a high cost of prescription drugs remains the public's top health care priority. In the past few years, prices on generic and brand-name prescription drugs have steadily risen and experienced a 4.7 percent spike in 2015, according to the Altarum Institute Center for Sustainable Health Spending.


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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by chromas on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:20PM

    by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:20PM (#265021) Journal

    I find this very concerning. Look, when I get a rash and go visit a doctor with years of biology, chemistry and other medical training, he expects me to ask him about some stuff I saw on tv.

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  • (Score: 1) by SDRefugee on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:27PM

    by SDRefugee (4477) on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:27PM (#265025)

    I really *doubt* the doctor is *expecting* you to ask him about shit you see on tv.. I sure the hell wouldn't... Its the mindless marketing drones from "Big Pharma" doing that.. The ONLY thing I even trust for any medical info besides my doctor is WebMD...

    --
    America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:39PM

      by Freeman (732) on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:39PM (#265033) Journal

      http://www.mayoclinic.org/ [mayoclinic.org] Mayo Clinic is a good repository of information as well. In fact I would rank Mayo Clinic much higher than WebMD.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:27PM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:27PM (#265057) Journal

        Read the by-lines on Mayo and webmd, and you often find they are the same bunch of doctors.
        And when they are, some of the articles are almost word for word the same.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:09AM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:09AM (#265275) Journal

          OMG! frojack has lifted the veil! All our doctors are actually Robots! It's just like in the end of the Star Wars before the suck, when Luke got his hand fixed by that droid doctor. Of course that was well before Luke was delivered by a droid doctor, and well before, or actually about the same time as his Father was patched together by, yet again!!! droid doctors, and put into a suit so he could have a very deep and breathy voice, which was important for the future of the force ----franchise, I meant.

          Medical doctors are not doctors. We have known this since Aristotle. He came over from the dark side, but retained many of its qualities. The Latin root of "docta" is "teach". Medical people have not always been called doctors, since they often did not teach at all, and had very little learning to draw on, in any case. They were called "physcians", or "barbers". Blood-letters, hacks, quacks, and Ben Carson. That last bit was uncalled for, but couldn't help it. Plato famously said that when a physcian is more interested in collecting fees than practicing medicine, we should refer to them as a "fee-collector" rather than a doctor. And of course, pharmacy has never been a reputable profession: "pharma" is Greek for poison. Now we know. Do not let these bastards advertise. And get the god-damned lawyers off the TV and internets. Not to mention "Cancer Clinics"! Do you have some retirement money left and want a second opinion before your inevitable and painful demise? Oh, those guy are the worst. They are like the Daesh of Medicine! To all these drug dealers, I hope you die of the disease you are pandering to to make your living, because that would be justice. Ironic justice, but justice none the less. And at least we would not have to listen to you or wonder about what we actually should ask our doctor about. Assuming he is a real doctor, and not a pharma shill, or jmorris.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:41PM

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:41PM (#265071) Journal

      I really *doubt* the doctor is *expecting* you to ask him about shit you see on tv.

      Why wouldn't he? Everybody does it these days, so the doctors have learned to expect it.

      They've also learned to deal with it, and dig in their heels or give in, depending on their training or the patient's degree of persistence. Given two drugs of reasonably close performance, doctors will often prescribe according to patient's wishes.

      You also have to consider that some doctors do make money prescribing certain drugs [consumerreports.org]. The good doctors won't let this cloud their judgement. But you know some will. (You can look up your doctor on that page).

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:50PM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:50PM (#265079) Journal

        Correction:
        You can look up doctors from Links on that page:

        http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/ [propublica.org] (This even finds meals paid for by medical vendors, or symposiums attended for free paid for by drug companies).

           

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday November 22 2015, @06:26AM

      by sjames (2882) on Sunday November 22 2015, @06:26AM (#266463) Journal

      Expecting is exactly the right word. They are expecting it with a sense of dread that they will (for the 10,000th time) have to explain that "drug of the week" is for anal warts and cannot be expected to help with your cough.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:51PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:51PM (#265037)

    Its your broker who's really expecting it.

    Some complaining about periodic discussion of this topic is there are some weird corporate ads on CNBC (a dying cable network for financial news) for the strangest non-consumer companies and immediately the whining breaks out about how will judges tell the difference between a "buy our stock" ad and a "pester your doctor" ad.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:42PM

    by Marand (1081) on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:42PM (#265073) Journal

    I find this very concerning. Look, when I get a rash and go visit a doctor with years of biology, chemistry and other medical training, he expects me to ask him about some stuff I saw on tv.

    It's not just a pharma thing; I broke a bone in my foot many years ago and when I went to the appropriately trained "expert" I was directed to -- it was a work injury so I ended up with little choice about it -- he walked in with the x-rays and started the conversation with, basically, "Your foot's broken, do you want a splint or a cast?" and stood there waiting for me to choose.

    No suggestions, no information about pros and cons of each, nothing. I tried asking what he, as the person in the room with the training to make that sort of decision, thought should be done and he wouldn't say. I couldn't even get a list of pros/cons for the options. Everything was just met with some form of "I can't tell you that, pick something and gtfo" and annoyance that I was wasting his time asking questions.

    This was before smartphones were a thing, so I was stuck in the room with no information, no way to get any information, and being told to make a choice that would affect the healing. I was pissed; this kind of thing isn't like a haircut or choosing lunch where if you don't like the decision it's only a temporary problem. I still have problems with that foot sometimes, likely because I basically had to decide by coin-toss how it should be fixed.

    I've heard stories where people go to a dentist and get the same treatment, too. If we're expected to self-diagnose and pick the solutions ourselves, why do we even need the people that spend years in school learning about this shit?

    ---

    Sadly, that wasn't even close to the only problem I had with that broken foot. The first person I got sent to, I had to sit in a waiting room forever just to be told that he didn't work with that sort of thing, but he could direct me to someone else that could. Of course, I'd been waiting so long that the other doctor was unavailable until the next day, so I got sent home (third story apartment with no elevator, so that was fun) with nothing at all to help keep the foot from moving or being moved or anything. The next day I went back to the hospital, where it took three separate nurses about twenty minutes to figure out how to take my pulse, and then got the useless doctor of no-information.

    I'm not a litigious sort, but I regret not suing every fucking person I could over the whole thing. I was young and didn't know better, though.

    • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday November 18 2015, @11:16PM

      by Dunbal (3515) on Wednesday November 18 2015, @11:16PM (#265138)

      Everything was just met with some form of "I can't tell you that, pick something and gtfo"

      You can thank lawsuit happy medical predators and their lawyers and the warped jackpot justice system for that. If he tells you one over the other and anything at all goes wrong, you could sue and probably win. Excessive law suits have ruined medicine in the US.

      • (Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday November 19 2015, @09:39AM

        by Marand (1081) on Thursday November 19 2015, @09:39AM (#265295) Journal

        You can thank lawsuit happy medical predators and their lawyers and the warped jackpot justice system for that

        That's kind of what I figured, but it's still bullshit that you go to someone trained to handle a certain problem and they leave you to figure it out yourself. The doctor in my case wasn't involved in any part of the process except the part where he walked in, demanded I make a decision without providing any useful information, and then left. What, exactly, was he being paid for there?

        Also, not directed to you specifically, but WTF at the troll mod for my comment. Offtopic I could maybe understand since it was on topic to the parent but not so much to TFS, but in what way was that a troll post?

        • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday November 19 2015, @12:45PM

          by Dunbal (3515) on Thursday November 19 2015, @12:45PM (#265320)

          There are plenty of people who think "troll" means "anyone who posts something I disagree with". Just ignore them, they rarely have anything useful to contribute. In fact, apart from calling people "troll" they don't do anything at all. They're just part of the background noise on the internet.