SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Dr. Lowe (of Things I Won't Work With" fame) has a blog, In The Pipeline, to which he recently posted an interesting commentary on the topic of direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical marketing:
There's an op-ed in The New York Times that makes tough reading, and it's something that we're going to be seeing more of. The author, Matt Jablow, lost his wife Ronna to non-small cell lung cancer, undiagnosed until a late stage, which is bad enough.
[...] And now, as Jablow says, he gets to watch commercials for Opdivo talking about how it can extend lives, ask your doctor, and so on, and he's (understandably) not happy about it. I'd find it painful, too – who wouldn't?
[...] The op-ed goes on to note the recent failed trial as dashing "the highest of hopes", but those were the highest of hopes for people who haven't been following the biology closely (which includes many investors as well).
[...] Immuno-oncology, in its various forms, has pulled some people practically out of the grave by current treatment standards, and we're going to see more of that in the years to come. But we're also going to see people who aren't helped by it, not yet, and losing them will be harder than ever.
Much more money is spent on pharmaceutical marketing than on research and about 12.5% of the marketing budget is devoted to direct to consumer advertising. Except for the US and New Zealand, the rest of the world does not allow direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs.
Some US companies, such as Insys Therapeutics, also pay doctors through "speaker programs" and employ former exotic dancers as sales representatives.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/08/09/a-painful-cancer-advertisement
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/opinion/cancer-drug-ads-vs-cancer-drug-reality.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_marketing
http://sirf-online.org/2015/04/24/the-new-killing-it/
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday August 12 2016, @08:07AM
It seems to me that one should simply prohibit consumer advertisements for prescription drugs.
Patients shouldn't be arguing with their doctors, trying to get some medication prescribed that they saw on TV. Patients are generally not in a position to evaluate what drugs are appropriate for their diseases. Those who are, will be reading the primary medical literature, not responding to ads.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday August 12 2016, @07:09PM
You can't, in the land of the First...
Forcing them to reveal that your migraine medecine might be linked to melting organs and sudden brain explosions is about as far as you can go.
I'm all for an informed public, and I like to know exactly what my doctor are talking about, but creating web repositories of actual medical consensus (with all the flawed thinking it sometimes entails) would be a lot better than hoping people can navigate their way between the BS pushed by the people with agendas.