Arthritis. High cholesterol.

Name an ailment and there is probably a television commercial somewhere that is advertising about the disorder and promoting a prescription drug that treats it. Only programming for young people has more or less escaped the trend.

But no longer.

Both Roche Laboratories and Galderma Laboratories have been running ad campaigns aimed at teenagers to make them aware of prescription medications that treat that most common but angst-laden adolescent condition: acne.

The campaigns reflect the phenomenal growth of consumer advertising of prescription drugs, which exceeded $1.4 billion last year, according to Competitive Media Reporting, a media research firm in New York.

Promoting prescription medicine to young people is unusual -- Galderma may be the first to advertise a prescription product to teenagers by brand name -- but it is not illegal. And for acne medication, the timing may be right.

Both Roche, a unit of Hoffmann-La Roche, and Galderma, a venture of Nestl? and L'Or?al, are running their campaigns on family and youth-oriented programming on national cable television. Roche, for instance, has spots on the Nickelodeon Channel. And though both ad campaigns deal with the emotional toll of acne, their approaches are very different. Both companies spent more than $8 million on television advertising for the 11 months ended in November.

Galderma's campaign promotes and talks about Differin, a topical ointment introduced in 1997. Roche, which markets Accutane, the leading prescription acne drug, is running health education messages, which only talk about acne but never promote nor even mention its prescription drug by name.

Young people are the natural target because 85 percent will get acne. But they are also an elusive group for marketers to reach. Roughly 80 percent of acne patients treat themselves with over-the-counter brands.

The Roche spots feature a teenager upset about acne -- in one he is called "pizza face" by his pals -- and are designed to persuade parents and children to talk about the condition and seek help with a dermatologist. The spots let the viewer know that treatment is available through a dermatologist and includes a toll-free number that provides general information and doctor referral from the American Academy of Dermatology.

The Roche ads are probably designed to expand the market, said Hemant Shah, president of HKF & Company, pharmaceutical consultants in Warren, N.J. And, he said, the strategy makes sense because if more patients go to the doctor for acne, a certain percentage will be prescribed the most popular medication on the market -- Roche's Accutane. Pharmaceutical companies have run similar efforts for other ailments, including high cholesterol, migraines and depression.

The idea is to expand the market and just get them interested and motivated, and teenagers aren't the easiest patients to motivate. One advantage of advertising the ailment, instead of the brand, is that a drug company avoids mentioning potential side effects of its drug, which is required under the Food and Drug Administration's "fair balance" guidelines.

Fair balance sometimes either doesn't permit a company to be as specific as they want to, or so clouds the ad that it might scare people away. No regulations prohibit advertising prescription drugs to youngsters.

New York Times March 16, 2000

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

A five-fold increase in direct to consumer spending since 1994 has meant that nearly $1 billion was spent on this form of drug company advertising through print, radio, online and TV ads in just the first 6 months of 1999 alone.

With such a huge mass marketing enterprise, these ads have had huge effects on consumers' level of medical education and awareness, the cost of prescription drugs, the potential for over-prescribing, and the changing role of the doctor in deciding diagnosis and choosing treatment.

The drug companies are hugely influential, and I believe at the core of what is wrong with traditional medicine. The adults reading this remember that it was not to long ago when there were no direct drug company to patient advertising.

Now it is rampant, even extending to kids. I believe that it is the drug company influence in medicine that has created the traditional paradigm that there is a pill solution for our problems. Of course there is a company that makes those pills and receives a profit when you purchase them.

These companies do not receive a profit when you select foods that prevent you from getting sick in the first place. I am grateful that many of these medications exist and I fully appreciate having a medical license to be able to prescribe some of them when they are indicated. There is no question that drugs save people's lives every day.

However, it is the over reliance on them and there inappropriate use that contributes to them being the fourth leading cause of death in this country.

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