70% of drugs advertised on TV are less effective than others on the market

[thewayne]

They are described as being of "low therapeutic value", i.e., less effective. So basically the drug companies are trying to sucker you into brow-beating your doctor into prescribing stuff that you saw on TV - which is going to be non-generic and much more expensive - and it is likely to be less effective than other drugs on the market.

Yeah.

So what we've got here is the pharma industry KNOWING that the drug isn't very effective, but they figure that if they put a lot of money into advertising on TV and in magazines that they can shift enough units to work towards recovering costs before the doctors find out it's less effective and start saying "No, I will not prescribe that. Here are more effective alternatives for that condition."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/01/most-prescription-drugs-advertised-on-tv-are-of-low-benefit-study-finds/

https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/01/18/2122237/70-of-drugs-advertised-on-tv-are-of-low-therapeutic-value-study-finds

EDIT: I forgot to mention that there are only two countries IN THE WORLD that allow such advertising of drugs: the USA and New Zealand! How the Kiwis were suckered into doing this, I do not know. But as chained to corporate profits as we are, I don't think this will ever change. For me, this is one of the reasons why the mute button on the remote was invented: if I can't skip the commercial, at least I can silence it.

Comments

[bibliofile]

Y'know, there were reasons that drug companies weren't allowed to advertise their products for a long time.

Tangentially related: advertising overall increased after it was allowed as a deductible business expense during the Reagan era.

And here we are.

[dewline]

And we have spillover effect into Canada - and elsewhere, I expect - because of cable and satellite TV.

[thewayne]

Now that's interesting! I did not know that, I thought that normally advertising wasn't allowed across national borders unless it was bought in the additional markets.

Obviously you can't do anything about terrestrial broadcast TV and radio near a border.

[thewayne]

And you reminded me of a line that I forgot to put in, re: NZ.

I don't think it should be allowed, but as we are in a Capitalism Run Amok country, it'll never change.

[kaishin108]

I am shocked the Kiwis put up with it. It is a horrid practice.
We are so lobbied high and low by these pharmaceutical companies, grr.

[thewayne]

Though late night TV hosts have been quite successful at parodying them on occasion. :-)

[kaishin108]

That's good! I don't stay up late enough to see them.
What gets me is when they say, do not take if you are allergic to; and then they name the drug. It is so transparent that they don't want to chance getting sued, and that fast talk, my gawd!

[kaishin108]

That's good! I don't stay up late enough to see them.
What gets me is when they say, do not take if you are allergic to; and then they name the drug. It is so transparent that they don't want to getting sued, and that fast talk, my gawd!

[acelightning73]

A lot of the drugs ads I see give a frightening list of adverse effects. But somehow these ads send people running to get a prescription for the latest wonder drug to treat some difficult condition. "I saw it on TV - it must be good!"

[thewayne]

I know!  The side-effects shown are terrifying!  "May cause your butt to fall off or sudden death."  And people are lemmings to try and get them.

[mtbc]

Sometimes, side effects that would make the target condition worse!

[disneydream06]

I miss the days when there weren't drugs advertised on tv. :(
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Ditto!

[warriorsavant]

Not permitted in Canada (or most countries), but some spill over, usually broadcast, or print media, or people visiting US. I tend to automatically refuse to prescribe it on principal; interesting study about their being less effective (but not surprising).

In addition to my reflex refusal, much of it wouldn't be paid for by either government or private insurance plans here anyhow. Example, biological agents for psoriasis, although quite effective, are also quite expensive, and no one is going to pay for those for mild psoriasis. In fact, won't pay for more severe psoriasis unless you've shown (a) how severe it is, and (b) that older, cheaper agents failed. At one point, you could then get the agency that the company hired to do the paperwork, but in the past year, Quebec medicare (if they pay for it) have stopped allowing that to happen. I (which is to say my nurse, T, as my agent) has to fill in an on-line request.

[thewayne]

My last really big insurance fight was when my pharmacy benefit manager wanted to take me off my antibody drug, which I'd been on for a decade with zero adverse effects, and switch me to a different one to save the PBM money.  We fought that hard and won, kudos to my immunologist's staff.  In the middle of the pandemic, no less!  While they're both antibody drugs and roughly the same, the IgA values were tremendously higher in the new ones they wanted me to use and we didn't want to risk problems.

[warriorsavant]

Sounds like switch to “Biosimilars” here. So far, mostly gov’t plan requiring that, but private insurers starting to follow. My impression (impression only, not hard fact) is that they don’t always work as well. Might be nocebo effect, but have had a few that failed after switching.

[howsmyenglish]

Back when I lived in Germany, there definitely was advertising of drugs on TV. But not prescription drugs, I don't think there were any prescription drugs, only general stuff against pain and fever and a drug company used to advertise itself, too.

[thewayne]

That we're used to, everybody advertises over the counter meds.  It's this specialty stuff that's tremendously expensive.

[mtbc]

It's amazing how uncaring one must be to peddle expensive mediocrity to the ill.

Still, the ads in the US are kind of fun: one gets to guess what ailment the product will be for. E.g., people in fields tend to have allergies, middle-aged tennis players tend to have arthritis, etc. Just like with other kinds of ad where, e.g., women on horseback tend to be menstruating (or, if a bit older, incontinent).

[thewayne]

It is disgusting, isn't it?  Shows you the motive force behind MBAs and the C Suite - profit, costs to people be damned. Yeah, the ads do tend along trope lines, don't they?

[mtbc]

I fear that social systems can easily emerge that rather suck for a high fraction of the people in them!

[thewayne]

Well, supposedly Max Headroom is back in production, so we'll get another good glimpse at dystopia. ;-)

[mtbc]

That'll be interesting, haven't seen it since not much after original so at least I won't have clear enough memories to be disappointed by the remake!

[thewayne]

From what I've heard, they got Matt Frewer back to do Max, I'm assuming that someone else will be the 'intrepid Network 23 reporter, assuming they go with the basic premise.  The original concept was Frewer's reporter stumbles upon a big story and an attempt to kill him results in the making of Max.  Therefore, Max looks like the reporter.  If they're doing a remake, it's going to be weird for me.  If they're doing a '30 years after', I'm okay with that.  We shall see what the result is.  At least the costs for animating Frewer as Max will be a lot lower: they won't have to do all the makeup and prosthetics on him, it'll just be motion capture and re-animation.

[mtbc]

That's good to hear, I like Matt Frewer but his being in things tends to be a surprise (however pleasant), typically whatever he's been doing tends not to be whatever comes my way.

[thewayne]

He did a comedy TV show on CBS some time after Max, called Doctor Doctor.  It was hilarious!  I don't know if it made it through its first season before being cancelled.  I've never been able to find it on DVD, I'd be shocked if someone bought the rights and is streaming it.

[mtbc]

I've sure not noticed it and I do keep half an eye on those old-reruns channels!

[thewayne]

I was mistaken!  It ran three seasons for 40 episodes!  No mention on IMDB whether anyone is streaming it. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096566/

[thewayne]

I found a streaming service that has Doctor Doctor, but only season 1.  And apparently it's free, so they may have commercials. https://www.crackle.com/details/3a7616d0-4e19-4814-b350-831c4bfab826/doctor-doctor

[silveradept]

They're also advertising to the doctors to prescribe the stuff with things that would probably be called bribery, but for the fact that we're in the Capitalist Hellscape. I'm not surprised, however, that the mediocre stuff gets direct-marketed to try and recoup the costs that go into making these particular failures.

[thewayne]

It used to be that they'd just write-off less than successful drugs, and hope that it might be found to be useful for another condition down the line (thalidomide being used for leprosy, etc).  Now we can just go ahead and sell them to stupid people!

[silveradept]

For many things in medicine, we're all stupid people, and I suspect some of that is because of the fuckery that goes on with private insurance companies and their arbitrariness. You shouldn't have to learn more than your doctor just to ensure you get proper care.

[thewayne]

Yeah, insurance fuckery is a constant bane.  I just received a bill for a variety of bloodwork that my wife had done over TWO YEARS AGO!  This hospital is a constant thorn in our side, even though we stopped doing business with them over a year ago.  She paid $200 for the work then, and now they want another $400 or so! I'm planning on getting a copy of their chargemaster at that time to confirm that they're not reassessing the bill at current rates.