Migraine

If you watch television, you're bound to have seen commercials for prescription medications. Magazines are also running an increasing number of ads for medications. This direct-to-consumer advertising tells us about medications for about any medical condition -- depression, Migraine disease, asthma, insomnia, erectile dysfunction, arthritis, and more. But, there is a debate about such advertising. Is it beneficial or detrimental?

Background:
USA TODAY, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health conducted a national survey regarding drug advertising. The results were interesting...

Continue reading Direct-To-Consumer Drug Advertising - Beneficial or Detrimental?

This is a wonderful, Teri. There are many components to this topic, it feels like we are on the tip of the iceberg.

Marekting drugs to consumers has strong and weak points. The strongest point being education. An informed patient is the best kind, as we tell everyone. The more we know about our treatment options, the better our health care will be. This includes medications, and our partnership with our doctor. Advertising medications in magazines, tv and radio is one avenue to that end.

One potential weak point could be a self-diagnosis issue. Some people may hear the list of advertised symptoms, be healthy, but think the pill is what they need. I can see where doctors may have a problem with this.

I think any reasonable doctor wouldn't have a problem with a patient asking about a new med they saw an ad for, if it was an honest question (as opposed to a demand). One of the reasons I really like my PCP is that she does take the time during my appointments to educate me about whatever issue we're talking about at the time, not to simply prescribe me medication or refer me to a specialist.

Thanks for this article, Teri. This is definitely an interesting issue with a lot of different components, like Nancy said.

Nancy,

I hear you and agree on the point about self-diagnosis. If I hadn't seen and heard story after story about how little time doctors have to spend with their patients, how little is explained to patients, and even seen and heard people say they had no idea even what their medications were for; I'd feel differently. But until there is better communication, I think the advertising is valuable.

As long as the "truth in advertising" and other current laws are obeyed when this advertising is done (and they are), I think there's more good than bad here.

quote:

Originally posted by Nancy Bonk:
This is a wonderful, Teri. There are many components to this topic, it feels like we are on the tip of the iceberg.

Marekting drugs to consumers has strong and weak points. The strongest point being education. An informed patient is the best kind, as we tell everyone. The more we know about our treatment options, the better our health care will be. This includes medications, and our partnership with our doctor. Advertising medications in magazines, tv and radio is one avenue to that end.

One potential weak point could be a self-diagnosis issue. Some people may hear the list of advertised symptoms, be healthy, but think the pill is what they need. I can see where doctors may have a problem with this.

MJ,

You're welcome and thanks!

I agree with you about reasonable doctors not having a problem. To me, it's rather like whether doctors like or hate it when people bring info from the Internet to them. It seems to me that info a patient brings in is worth discussion when the doctor is reasonable and conscientious.

quote:

Originally posted by MaxJerz:
I think any reasonable doctor wouldn't have a problem with a patient asking about a new med they saw an ad for, if it was an honest question (as opposed to a demand). One of the reasons I really like my PCP is that she does take the time during my appointments to educate me about whatever issue we're talking about at the time, not to simply prescribe me medication or refer me to a specialist.

Thanks for this article, Teri. This is definitely an interesting issue with a lot of different components, like Nancy said.

Wayyyy Back when I was still in school so to speak (I was doing a residency in 91-92) and this was all very new (DTC ads), I did a talk on this to my coworkers and we all agreed that it was bad news. My thinking has changed a little (ie, yes, it is good that people are being educated that a) it is ok to talk about health problems such as impotence, urinary incontinence, etc and b) there are medications out there to treat them.

But the other side of that is that drug companies are advertising such outrageous meds as treatments for anemia caused by cancer treatment. Any reputable doctor is monitoring a patient's bloodwork during chemo! That in my opinion is a total waste of money that could be much better spent on research than on advertising. As could most of the billions of dollars that is spent on advertising and just raises drug costs. Most asthma, allergy, blood pressure, whatever! meds do not need to be advertised to consumers! Most people need to go to their doctor, describe their individual symptoms, then get appropriate treatment without having their doctor pressured by some ad the patient saw on TV. I pity all the doctors who are bombarded when a new drug ad comes out. Good grief, we get it at the pharmacies - STOCK YOUR SHELVES! New ad in Woman's Day! uh, for what? Oh, a new blood pressure drug? Half the time, the patient has seen the ad before the doctor or pharmacist - how embarrassing is that? If drug companies are going to advertise to the public, they need to warn the prescribers first. The poor doctors call us asking what a new med is.

It would be much more useful for the companies to just advertise that there is effective treatment and to give out good, clear, informative, generic health information without biasing it all on their one drug. Sure maybe a brief "sponsored by Pfizer/Merck/whoever" at the end is great. I am all for them encouraging open dialogue between people with their health care providers, ESPECIALLY about "embarrassing" problems. So bring on the educational blurbs about that!

All right, off my soap box. We often have discussions about stuff like this at work, esp after a doc calls and asks what something is and neither one of us has heard of it b/c we haven't watched TV or read enough magazines..... LOL! Once I commented that they needed to read the magazines in their own waiting rooms.

Diane

quote:

Originally posted by Teri Robert:
If you watch television, you're bound to have seen commercials for prescription medications...Migraine disease...Is it beneficial or detrimental?

...

Here's another side.

I hate it when people say to me, "If you would only take Imitrex, you would get your life back--I saw a commercial on TV just the other day!"

Triptans don't help migraine for me. They are amazing for cluster headaches but don't help migraine. I've stopped trying to explain the problems I had with Imitrex. People don't care. They saw a commercial and they'll believe it before they'll believe me.

You're question was to ask our opinion about whether we think it's beneficial or detrimental to have direction-to-consumer drug advertising? I ignore people who are influenced by it. I have enough negativity to overcome without that sort of thing too.

quote:

Originally posted by tucker317:
It would be much more useful for the companies to just advertise that there is effective treatment and to give out good, clear, informative, generic health information without biasing it all on their one drug. Sure maybe a brief "sponsored by Pfizer/Merck/whoever" at the end is great. I am all for them encouraging open dialogue between people with their health care providers, ESPECIALLY about "embarrassing" problems. So bring on the educational blurbs about that!

I completely agree. Unfortunately I doubt this will happen any time soon, if ever. This reminds me somewhat of the discussion we were having in one of the other threads, about doctors being influenced by drug companies. In that thread I brought up the common practice in my field (architecture) of having "lunch & learns" sponsored by vendors of various different materials. My office typically has two lunch & learns each week - one is an AIA (American Institute of Architects) Continuing Education course, during which the course provider is not allowed to mention specific products. The other lunch & learn is not an AIA CE course, so it's basically an hour of the vendor talking about his product. This is like the difference you're talking about - the vendor lunch would be like the ads we currently see, and the CE course would be like the more useful ads you're talking about.

quote:

Originally posted by Medieval Writer:
Here's another side.

I hate it when people say to me, "If you would only take Imitrex, you would get your life back--I saw a commercial on TV just the other day!"

Ah, the old "helpful suggestions" issue. If I had a nickel for every time someone offered me Advil or Excedrin Migraine for my Migraines, then I would have enough money to fund better research for Migraine disease to benefit all of us. *sigh*