How effective are direct-to-consumer drug ads?

Pharmaceutical companies have spent billions of dollars each year on direct to consumer ads since the Food and Drug Administration removed restrictions in 1997.

The United States and New Zealand are the only two countries in the world where direct-to-consumer advertising is permitted.

Chances are if you suffer from insomnia, high cholesterol or allergies you have seen a TV ad for a prescription medication that promises relief.



A new study appears to show that all those direct-to-consumer ads for prescription drugs to treat such conditions have much less effect than previously thought, a finding that could be bad news for pharmaceutical companies.

Debate about the practice has exploded, too. Drug companies argue that advertising medications provides an important public health service by alerting consumers to potentially undiagnosed, or undertreated, disorders.

Some doctors and health advocates, on the other hand, argue that ads entice patients to insist on unnecessary or ineffective drugs and to forgo healthy lifestyle changes that might obviate the need for drugs in the first place.

More here.