[di meliora]

It's no secret that advertising works. Big Pharma wouldn't spend over $4 billion a year on direct-to-consumer advertising if it didn't mean massive profits.

The United States is one of the few countries that allow direct-to-consumer advertising. The article talks about safety issues and how Americans are being duped with government approval.

http://truth-out.org/index.php?optio...dles-its-drugs

[InTheShadows]

sounds political to me

[bipolarmedstudent]

Ok, keep in mind I come from a country without direct-to-consumer advertising (Canada).

BUT, I don't think it's as evil as you make it out to be.

Why? Because ultimately the gatekeepers of drugs are the physicians, not the patients. So if direct-to-consumer advertising is really having such a huge effect on prescribing practices, then we need to take a good look at why. A good, responsible doctor is not supposed to just prescribe whatever drug the patient asks for.

I think direct-to-consumer advertising can actually help open a dialogue between patients and physicians. Sometimes a patient just needs to know that there are treatment options available, and then they will bring up what's bothering them with their doctor.

I think the much more sinister thing is the aggressive direct-to-doctor advertising that happens, and the way that Big Pharma manipulates the research field by controlling research grants and research symposiums, planting fake research, hiring doctors to put their names on reseach papers, etc. THAT is how Big Pharma is REALLY peddling its drugs. It is VERY sinister and it is detroying the research world. And this is coming from a med student who is very pro-drug.

[Cotton ball]

Ohh I am tired and in a terrible/foul mood.
This article/link gave me a good laugh.
I agree completely with it..sorry to say. Not political...TRUE! Politics=$..it's a circle..who do you think gives the biggest donations to polital campaigns...and there is the circle. Round and round it goes...where it stops no one knows.!!

[Cotton ball]

Bipolarmed- who do you think authorizes the meds given to patients in hospitals, and direct visits, what is approved by insurance companies, how does that come into play? There are payoffs everywhere!!

How come we have adds on TV for antidepressants and such in Canada, isn't that direct-to-consumer advertising? Or am I watching American channels, no I am not very TV smart

[bipolarmedstudent]

Originally Posted by Cotton ball

Bipolarmed- who do you think authorizes the meds given to patients in hospitals, and direct visits, what is approved by insurance companies, how does that come into play? There are payoffs everywhere!!

well, I live in Canada. That's not how our insurance system works. All medications given in hospital are paid for by the government. Doctors don't need to have medications 'authorized' when they prescribe them in hospital.

Outside the hospital, people either pay for drugs out-of-pocket, or they have third-party drug plans. But our drug plans work differently. When I fill my prescriptions, they are all automatically covered under my plan. The insurance company doesn't 'authorize' it. If my doctor has prescribed me a medication, the insurance company covers it, except in rare instances where a certain drug is just flat-out not covered (for example, a few plans will not cover any birth control pills, period, but those plans are rare). But as far as I know, there is no authorization process the same way that there is in the States (where you have to show them your diagnosis, etc.).

The only thing is that some plans have co-pays, or only cover a certain percentage of the cost of drugs (e.g. 85% of the cost of any prescription). I have three different plans (I'm covered under my dad's plan, under my mom's plan, and under my university plan), so I have no co-pay at all. I pay $0 every month for my meds. And I never had to go through an authorization process for any of them.

[bipolarmedstudent]

Originally Posted by Anika

How come we have adds on TV for antidepressants and such in Canada, isn't that direct-to-customer advertising? Or am I watching American channels, no I am not very TV smart

They are American networks.

[InTheShadows]

Originally Posted by Cotton ball

Bipolarmed- who do you think authorizes the meds given to patients in hospitals, and direct visits, what is approved by insurance companies, how does that come into play? There are payoffs everywhere!!

talking about government especially singling one out = politics

[Cotton ball]

Aww hell, I really don't care. It's a joke really. If no one cares why should I? Good luck and goodnight. I'de rather be blind! Must be nice!
Too tired for this.

[bipolarmedstudent]

I'm not saying Big Pharma isn't evil. They are evil. Very evil. Just not in the ways that most people think they are. Their evil is mostly in the way they manipulate what research gets done and what research gets published and what drugs get approved. The direct-to-consumer advertising is quite benign in comparison. It's the direct-to-doctor advertising and the grant-funding to researchers that you SHOULD be worried about.

[Cotton ball]

Bipolarmed & others,
Sorry..tired and triggered. Took this topic off subject and due to fatigue cannot be logical.
I do however still agree!

It's naive to think that advertising isn't playing a significant role in what gets prescribed. These corporations aren't going to spend $4.5 billion without a very good reason. To state the obvious...the reason for advertising is to sell a product.
To stir the pot a bit, how about all those pharma reps clogging up doctors offices. They're wining and dining and maybe 69ing every health care provider they can get to in order to get their product moving. And their higher paid coworkers are visiting every public hospital and private hospital or the people involved in approving and purchasing pharmaceuticals.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17599937/Hospital-Selling

[InTheShadows]

Originally Posted by George H.

It's naive to think that advertising isn't playing a significant role in what gets prescribed. These corporations aren't going to spend $4.5 billion without a very good reason. To state the obvious...the reason for advertising is to sell a product.
To stir the pot a bit, how about all those pharma reps clogging up doctors offices. They're wining and dining and maybe 69ing every health care provider they can get to in order to get their product moving. And their higher paid coworkers are visiting every public hospital and private hospital or the people involved in approving and purchasing pharmaceuticals.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17599937/Hospital-Selling

adding the sexual aspect was totally unnecessary and more likely than not, untrue. why do people here feel the need to trash reputations? they are doing their job just like we do ours.

[bipolarmedstudent]

Originally Posted by George H.

It's naive to think that advertising isn't playing a significant role in what gets prescribed. These corporations aren't going to spend $4.5 billion without a very good reason. To state the obvious...the reason for advertising is to sell a product.
To stir the pot a bit, how about all those pharma reps clogging up doctors offices. They're wining and dining and maybe 69ing every health care provider they can get to in order to get their product moving. And their higher paid coworkers are visiting every public hospital and private hospital or the people involved in approving and purchasing pharmaceuticals.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17599937/Hospital-Selling

And to play devil's advocate....

my bf is actually a medical sales rep (for vision care though, not for pharma), and all his friends in pharma say that the good old glory days of pharma sales are over. Apparently the rules are so strict now (you can no longer 'wine and dine' doctors, for example), that pharma reps are struggling to meet their targets and make commissions.

Personally, I don't see myself ever meeting with pharma reps in the future. I would just turn them away. It's not for me.

[bipolarmedstudent]

Originally Posted by hi_iq

adding the sexual aspect was totally unnecessary and more likely than not, untrue. why do people here feel the need to trash reputations? they are doing their job just like we do ours.

well, to be fair, sometimes their jobs involve doing things that are against the law. like specifically pushing drugs for off-label indications. and like writing fake research papers and putting the names of doctors on them. pharma reps have actually been caught committing illegal acts (coming from the top, of course) during the course of their jobs.

[InTheShadows]

Originally Posted by bipolarmedstudent

well, to be fair, sometimes their jobs involve doing things that are against the law. like specifically pushing drugs for off-label indications. and like writing fake research papers and putting the names of doctors on them. pharma reps have actually been caught committing illegal acts (coming from the top, of course) during the course of their jobs.

i can say with confidence that people in most job industries have been caught in illegal acts, no need to single out one profession because one person happens to dislike it.

[di meliora]

Please understand that the drug industry has the LARGEST political lobbying force in the United States.

There is nothing benign about Big Pharma. Yes, the United States government and medical industry is guilty of major complicity, but money talks.

Pharmaceuticals often have a larger budget for advertizing than for research. Overpricing drugs and price fixing is rampant. Pfizer and other pharmas protect their price gouging by paying hundreds of millions to other companies not to market cheaper generic drugs. Despite being labeled corporate criminals, Big Pharma seems to treat settlement payments as a part of doing business.

www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=315
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/...oj-settlements
http://64.207.159.91/media.php?NewsID=120

Big Pharma: Biggest Defrauder of Federal Government

In fact, the drug industry now tops all other industries in the total amount of fraud payments for actions against the federal government under the False Claims Act.

Four companies stand out as the worst of the worst.

GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Schering-Plough accounted for 53 percent of all financial penalties imposed on pharmaceutical companies between 1990 and 2010.

Most recently, on November 3, the New York Times reported that GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has settled another round of litigation against them to the tune of $3 BILLION. (The previous record was held by Pfizer, which in 2009 paid a fine of $2.3 billion for illegal marketing.) The charges against GSK included illegal marketing of the dangerous diabetes drug Avandia, kick-backs to doctors, and manipulation of medical research. Three billion dollars is no chump change, but it's still just a drop in the bucket when you consider the astronomical profits these companies rake in, which are significantly bolstered by their criminal activities.

For example, GSK has an annual revenue of about $28 billion, so how much of a deterrent can $3 billion really be?
The record over the past 20 years tells us that financial fines have done nothing to curb the criminal mindset within the pharmaceutical industry. On the contrary, it has increased in the past several years, despite larger fines being levied. This is largely due to the perversion of corporate influence on the government, as most eloquently explained by one of the most famous political lobbyists of all time who was able to freely spill the beans about the process in the 60 Minutes sequence below, after having served time in federal prison. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar...-industry.aspx

PS -- hi_iq, report me if you think this political.

Originally Posted by hi_iq

i can say with confidence that people in most job industries have been caught in illegal acts, no need to single out one profession because one person happens to dislike it.

Well... the pharmaceutical industry is the subject isn't it? It's an industry that can have laws changed, if breaking those laws becomes too expensive.

[bipolarmedstudent]

Eli-Lilly is the worst of the worst.

On the other hand, I'm a pretty big fan of Novartis. They are about as squeaky-clean as it gets for a pharma company! Also, they make Ritalin and a few really important cancer drugs (Gleevec, Femara, Zometa...)

[InTheShadows]

Originally Posted by di meliora

There is nothing benign about Big Pharma. Yes, the United States government and medical industry is guilty of major complicity, but money talks.

Pharmaceuticals often have a larger budget for advertizing than for research. Overpricing drugs and price fixing is rampant. Pfizer and other pharmas protect their price gouging by paying hundreds of millions to other companies not to market cheaper generic drugs. Despite being labeled corporate criminals, Big Pharma seems to treat settlement payments as a part of doing business.

www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=315
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/...oj-settlements
http://64.207.159.91/media.php?NewsID=120

PS -- hi_iq, report me if you think this political.

no worries I did, you're welcome

[di meliora]

Dollars for Docs: Who’s On Pharma’s Top-Paid List?

http://www.propublica.org/article/pr...ollar-for-docs

[Rose76]

I've read the article suggested at the top of this thread. What occurs to me is that having gotten rid of all the cigarette ads on the TV, "something" had to take their place. I see these ads as kind of filling a metaphysical void. American culture requires that a certain amount of advertising crap - about what we need to feel right - gets funneled into the popular brain.

Remember: cigarettes were once touted as being actually good for us. At the very least, you would feel more "refreshed" after having one.

It really is a mind teaser for me to try and figure which is more sinister - the direct to consumer ads or those pitched to the docs. I think both types work so much together as a tag team. Docs who prescribe and patients who request or consent mindlessly to ingest what is prescribed are playing each side to what the other party has been conditioned toward.

That is really sinister: That the consumers are being softened up to accept as a natural course that the answer is always some drug that the doc needs to scribble on the pad. Meanwhile the docs are conditioned to feel that is what the consumer will expect, and, also, what will be most efficacious. How many busy docs really go to the "literature" on a frequent basis and scrutinize the science?