Direct-to-Consumer Drug Ads Booming Despite Criticisms

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 15 (HealthDay News) -- Drug company spending on direct-to-consumer advertising continues to skyrocket, even as criticisms against it have soared.

Calling for a moratorium, rather than just restrictions, on such advertising might be in order, say the authors of a study in the Aug. 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Direct-to-consumer advertising spending is increasing in terms of its share of total marketing budget, but it's still a smaller share relative to promotion aimed at influencing prescribers," said study author Julie M. Donohue, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration started allowing direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs on television 10 years ago.

Since that time, spots of Dorothy Hamill and Sally Field peddling Vioxx and Boniva, respectively, cartoon characters illustrating the effects of the antidepressant Zoloft, and a wide range of similar promotions have become commonplace on American TV screens and in other media.

But so, too, has criticism of the practice. Skeptics say that direct-to-consumer advertising encourages overuse of medications and drives up drug spending.

The controversy reached critical proportions when the arthritis drug Vioxx, one of the most heavily promoted medications ever, was withdrawn from the market in 2004 because of serious cardiovascular risks.

"It's been 10 years since the FDA clarified its policy with respect to broadcast advertising and unleashed direct-to-consumer advertising on television, which was new," Donohue said. "We wanted to see, in the wake of the Vioxx withdrawal and an increased focus on the safety of drugs and a focus on drug costs in light of the implementation of the new Medicare drug benefit, what industry and the FDA were doing with respect to advertising."

For this analysis, Donohue and her colleagues looked at pharmaceutical company spending on direct-to-consumer advertising and promotion to physicians over the past decade.