Drug Advertising Leads More to Take Meds

The pharma industry certainly helps people who truly suffer from the afflictions they are designed to treat. But, they have bolstered their market share by marketing directly to the health-conscious consumer, leading younger and healthier people to consider themselves at risk and to start taking medications.

Direct-to-consumer advertising can lead people to believe they suffer from certain disorders or diseases simply based on the way the advertisement shows a disease in a normal light. Drug advertising portrays the disease as affecting any person who has felt shy in a social setting, restless at night, or tense, causes people who hear the advertisements to worry that they have a serious disease if they show any of the described symptoms. After hearing drug advertising, listeners will self-diagnose, or become concerned that they need the drug.

Observational and Clinical Studies


Another way companies in the pharma industry are putting profits before patients is their lack of or manipulation of research studies to ensure medicine safety.

The health care system has a hard time performing medicine-safety analyses, in large part because it relies on the pharma industry to conduct most research on the risks and benefits of medications. By relying on pharmaceutical companies who won’t voluntarily fund studies that could sink lucrative products, safety isn’t improved. Coupled with this, is the fact that FDA regulation lacks the power to make pharmaceutical companies do more research and public outcry isn’t vocal or coordinated enough to hold them accountable.

If you recall, the drug aprotinin made front page news when it was revealed that its manufacturer, Bayer, had hired a private contract research organization to perform its own large observational study of postoperative complications in patients given the drug. Bayer then chose not to make public the unfavorable medicine safety results.

The problem is not limited to observational studies. A few years ago, it was discovered that some companies had funded multiple medicine safety clinical trials of their selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitor antidepressants but reported the results of only the favorable trials—distorting the evidence base physicians use in weighing medicine safety for their patients. Epidemiologic analyses can even be further distorted. Companies can conduct them secretly, even in-house, with the use of a purchased proprietary database, making the results even easier to conceal.

Seeger Weiss believes the pharma industry should be held accountable for the medicine safety of their products. If you or a loved one has experienced serious harm due to a drug injury, contact us.

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