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posted by on Wednesday May 24 2017, @09:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the almost-like-advertising-is-the-raison-d'être dept.

This year on General Hospital, central character Anna Devane is stricken with a rare and life-threatening type of blood cancer. Gasp! OK, this may not be shocking; dramatic, unlikely, and always tragic events are the norm on soap operas. But this one is a little different.

Prior to the tear-jerking diagnosis, the ABC daytime drama—the longest running soap opera in the US—made a deal with a pharmaceutical company to come up with her fate. And the company, Incyte Corporation, just so happens to make the only targeted therapy for fictional Anna's very real form of cancer. This did not sit well with two doctors.

In an opinion piece published this week in JAMA, Sham Mailankody of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Vinay Prasad of Oregon Health & Science University systematically question the intent of the promotion. The piece ends with a call to arms to medical policy makers and regulators to try to stamp out these "creative" promotions.

These promotions have "tangible effects on health care behavior and can lead to unintended consequences, including wasteful diagnostic testing, overdiagnosis, and inappropriate therapy," the pair argue. "The status quo appears increasingly untenable: direct-to-consumer advertising is a massive medical intervention with unproven public health benefit, dubious plausibility, and suggestive evidence of harm."

Source: Ars Technica

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by jimbrooking on Wednesday May 24 2017, @11:30PM (4 children)

    by jimbrooking (3465) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 24 2017, @11:30PM (#515187)

    Last I heard, the USA and New Zealand are the only countries in the world that allow the advertising of prescription pharmaceuticals. I don't know what the Kiwis' problem is, but here in the USA our form of government has morphed into corporatocracy, for, by, and of corporate beneficiaries. The humans who live here have one duty: buy stuff. "Corporate personhood" says they can say anything they like, under the protection of free speech, to encourage the humans to buy THEIR stuff. Get used to it.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:24AM

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:24AM (#515219)

    You are right about New Zealand being the only other place that allows drug ads on TV. As far as I can remember, it was because the pay TV company (Sky, mostly owned by that notorious pantomime villain Rupert Murdoch) saw an opportunity, and the Government is always keen on keeping the Media happy.

    The other TV companies also saw dollars signs and it was sold to us as something that gave us "choice".

  • (Score: 2) by a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),- on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:05AM (2 children)

    by a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),- (3868) on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:05AM (#515260)

    Big Pharma is an evil drug lobby, easily as responsible for the opiate epidemic as the corrupt doctors who (over)prescribe them and other addictive drugs.

    Where is the "war on drugs" when you need it?

    --
    https://newrepublic.com/article/114112/anonymouth-linguistic-tool-might-have-helped-jk-rowling
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @07:27AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @07:27AM (#515341)

      We don't need the war on drugs. Not for opiates, and not for other drugs. Imprisoning everyone just tends to make things worse.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:36PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:36PM (#515539)

        Imprisoning everyone just tends to make things worse.

        Not everybody, but a lot of C-level pharma company officers wouldn't hurt, same for bankers.

        Not that I actually think a plutocracy would lock up its rulers.