RE: Why do we put up with this? Drug/adds OP ED
April 19, 2017 at 10:07 am
(This post was last modified: April 19, 2017 at 10:11 am by The Grand Nudger.)
There's also a global push for medication to manage peoples health risks.
In any case, I'm not sure how you'd quantify the costs to "the people" but from the standpoint of the pharma model..it looks like they make money. It doesn't end up costing them more at all, and that's especially true if you take the dimmest, most cynical view of the model and everyone involved. As to why they're all over TV now..well.
There was a big hubbub in '83, after a pain reliever ad went direct to consumer. Why they decided to do that invariably references a profit motive, but they're corporations...so, that's what they do. It might be greed, but it;s fair to say it;s more than just greed (I;m prettu sure pharma researchers are intersted in both the money -and- the product and the people the product might help - for example)...and I don't know why you think that medicine is to be sold for altruistic reasons? It's distributed free of charge for those reasons. We arrange health systems and find ways to pay any associated costs for those reasons, but that;s not the primary motivation of pharma research and manufacturing or sale- nor could it be (almost by definition), nor would they be able to deliver the same range of products that service that global push for medication from the consumer.
I think that a healthy level of skepticism is warranted for drug ads (or any ad, really...advertisers aren;t exactly paragons of virtue). It seems that we do take these ads with a grain of salt. I also think that we should have regulations regarding both truth in advertising in general..and truth in pharma ads specifically. Conveniently, we do.
In any case, I'm not sure how you'd quantify the costs to "the people" but from the standpoint of the pharma model..it looks like they make money. It doesn't end up costing them more at all, and that's especially true if you take the dimmest, most cynical view of the model and everyone involved. As to why they're all over TV now..well.
Quote:Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising is a relatively new area of prescription drug promotion. No federal law has ever banned DTC advertising. Until the mid-1980s, drug companies gave information about prescription drugs only to doctors and pharmacists. When these professionals thought it appropriate, they gave that information to their patients. However, during the 1980s, some drug companies started to give the general public more direct access to this information through DTC ads.https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/PrescriptionDrugAdvertising/ucm071964.htm
There was a big hubbub in '83, after a pain reliever ad went direct to consumer. Why they decided to do that invariably references a profit motive, but they're corporations...so, that's what they do. It might be greed, but it;s fair to say it;s more than just greed (I;m prettu sure pharma researchers are intersted in both the money -and- the product and the people the product might help - for example)...and I don't know why you think that medicine is to be sold for altruistic reasons? It's distributed free of charge for those reasons. We arrange health systems and find ways to pay any associated costs for those reasons, but that;s not the primary motivation of pharma research and manufacturing or sale- nor could it be (almost by definition), nor would they be able to deliver the same range of products that service that global push for medication from the consumer.
I think that a healthy level of skepticism is warranted for drug ads (or any ad, really...advertisers aren;t exactly paragons of virtue). It seems that we do take these ads with a grain of salt. I also think that we should have regulations regarding both truth in advertising in general..and truth in pharma ads specifically. Conveniently, we do.
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