By Stuart Elliott

Madison Avenue, facing growing legislative threats to one of the advertising industry's most lucrative categories, is stepping up the fight to protect its freedom to pitch prescription drugs directly to consumers.

Drug companies, agencies and their media allies who have benefited handsomely from the flood of ads beat back one recent measure in the House of Representatives. But advocacy organizations on the other side of the issue vow to continue battling to limit or even eliminate such campaigns, and one senator has introduced legislation that would limit the pharmaceutical industry's tax deduction for such advertising.

The category of direct-to-consumer ads did not even exist until five years ago. Before 1997, broad curbs prevented pharmaceutical makers from mounting any significant efforts, and they aimed most of their spending directly at health care professionals.

But since the Food and Drug Administration loosened its strictures against those ads, primarily by making it much easier to promote drugs with commercials, the category has boomed. It has become an estimated $3 billion-a-year business for the media. That exceeds the amount spent annually to advertise many drugs sold over the counter like analgesics and vitamins, according to CMR, a division of Taylor Nelson Sofres that tracks ad spending.

The spending for the direct-to-consumer drug campaigns, which come complete with the traditional trappings of brand advertising like celebrity endorsers, jingles, free samples and slogans, also exceeds the yearly outlays in mainstay marketing categories like insurance and real estate, apparel and alcoholic beverages.

Agencies are anxious to keep that revenue flowing as they struggle to recover from the worst advertising recession in decades. They and their clients, the drug companies, are also eager to keep open a channel that has significantly stimulated demand and sales.

Indeed, in a survey last month by the Ipsos marketing research company, 25 percent of respondents said they had been prompted by direct-to-consumer ads to call or visit a doctor to discuss the product being advertised. Moreover, 15 percent of respondents reported requesting the very drug that was the subject of the ad.

That is one reason opponents castigate direct-to-consumer ads, decrying them as unfairly influencing important health care decisions about powerful medicines that ought not to be sold with the same sophisticated marketing ploys used to peddle movies, soft drinks or fast food.

"The stuff done to promote drugs works, and because it works, it's doing a disservice to the patient," said Sidney Wolfe, director for the health research group of Public Citizen, an advocacy organization in Washington. "The doctors are frequently as misled as the patients are," he added.

One doctor, J. Edward Hill - the new chairman of the American Medical Association in Chicago - offered another complaint. "We have no policy that opposes direct-to-consumer advertising, mainly because of freedom-of-speech issues," Dr. Hill said. "However, we do have some big concerns about advertising getting in the middle of the patient-physician relationship.

"It's sometimes even creating an adversarial relationship," he added, "when the patient insists on an advertised medicine but the doctor believes it's not the best or most effective medicine."

The agencies are being joined by lobbyists for media that would lose ad revenue if Congress tightened rules for direct-to-consumer ads. At one time, some magazine and newspaper publishers perceived television and radio as rivals for ad revenue from makers of prescription drugs, but the media are now working together.

New York Times July 12, 2002

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Drug companies will spend over three billion dollars this year to advertise their drugs to consumers. That is a lot of money. Compared to their returns, though, it is next to nothing. This three billion dollar investment is targeted directly at consumers to further distort their minds into believing that a drug approach is the best solution for their health problems. It's a three billion dollar investment to keep consumers three billion light years from the truth. Natural health clinicians, meanwhile, don't have billions, or millions, or for that matter tens of thousands of dollars, to advertise to the contrary. But we do, at least, have our voices, and a medium like the Internet on which to share it. And so I'll share this piece of advice: Don't let these pharmaceutical ads with all their pastel colors, pretty people, and pleasant music fool you. Don't read the ads, don't watch the ads, don't listen to the ads. They are a waste of time. Worse, they are dangerous. Americans spent will spend over 500 billion dollars on drugs this year. Who out there is naïve enough to believe that American are getting half a trillion dollars of benefits from these pharmaceuticals? You can, and should, call drug companies a lot of negative things - but you can't call them stupid. Through lobbyists and other pressure tactics, they have pushed the government to change the rules so they can now market directly to consumers. It certainly has worked! 2/3 of doctor visits now result in a drug being prescribed. Spending for prescription drugs is the fastest-growing category of health care expenditures. But because doctors have been molded into this over-reliance on using pharmaceuticals as Band-Aids - versus seeking and treating the cause of the problem -- physicians are now the third leading cause of death in the US! Fortunately, you have other options. For starters, Mercola.com and many other excellent resources are now available to help you take back the control of your health. One of the most important ways of doing that is choosing to eat well. If you haven't already reviewed the eating plan, I would encourage you to do so, as it is one of the foundational pillars of healing. For those who are ill, examining the root cause of your illness is another important step in taking back your health; from my experience with patients, I can tell you that well over half the time this involves addressing the underlying stress in your life. I have found that psychological acupressure, of which EFT is a preferred technique, is one of the most effective solutions for such stress. You can use the free EFT manual to being learning how to do psychological acupressure for yourself so you can implement the eating plan or address some of your health challenges directly. Related Articles: Increased Spending on Drugs is Linked to More Advertising Medical Journals Aim to Curtail Drug Companies' Influence Drug Companies Triple Money on Direct-to-Consumer Drug Ads Drug Companies Spend Two Billion to Advertise Directly to Consumers Consumer Drug Ads Not Properly Monitored