Those Drug Ads Have Side Effects--on Wallets
The sickest joke on TV the last couple of years hasn’t come from “Jackass” or “South Park.” Its source is pharmaceutical advertising--those upbeat commercials for prescription drugs that end with rapid recitations to the effect that the pill that may relieve your allergies or indigestion may also give you cotton mouth, dizziness, diarrhea or ingrown toenails, meanwhile predisposing any child you procreate to chronic diaper rash. The ads are so perversely funny, they’re like “Saturday Night Live” parodies of commercials.
Now, it turns out, they’re not so comical after all. They’re the sugar-coating on a pill many consumers may find difficult to swallow. They may be pushing the cost of drugs to record highs.
According to this month’s AARP Bulletin, mass-media advertising by the drug industry jumped from $791 million in 1996 to almost $2.5 billion in 2000. Retail spending on prescription drugs hit $131.9 billion, up $21 billion from 1999. Critics, including some doctors and members of Congress, argue that the two statistics are linked.
The guess here is that most folks don’t have a clear memory of when prescription-drug advertising began, or why. For a long time, drug advertising on TV meant Alka-Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” spots and hammers-in-your-head demonstrations on behalf of over-the-counter headache remedies. They were so common that singer-songwriter Ray Stevens parodied the ads in a musical pitch for “the wonder drug that cures all your ills--Jeremiah Peabody’s polyunsaturated, quick-dissolving, fast-acting, pleasant-tasting, green and purple pills.”
The explosion of prescription-drug commercials, complete with obligatory and often blood-curdling disclaimers, began when the Food and Drug Administration relaxed its rules on TV advertising in 1997. Pharmaceutical manufacturers leaped at the opportunity.
Consider Vioxx, a Merck medication for arthritis pain, the most recent commercials for which feature former Olympic figure skating champion Dorothy Hamill. A study by the National Institute for Health Care Management found that Merck spent $161 million advertising Vioxx in 2000--more than Pepsi’s $125-million ad bill for the year or Budweiser’s $146 million. It’s reasonably certain that Vioxx provided more health benefits than colas or beer. On the other hand, neither is likely to wind up on our Medicare tab.
The drug industry’s response to spoilsports is that such advertising informs consumers about new medications and alerts them to health problems, thus providing a public service. And it’s not as if people who see the flashy ads can simply run out and buy the drug, the industry line goes; it’s still up to their physicians to say yea or nay.
What that reasoning ignores, however, is that the bulk of the industry’s overall $16-billion promotional spending in 2000 went to free samples for doctors and courting them with free meals, all-expenses-paid trips to conferences and other incentives to give the advertising targets what they ask for.
OK, so the drug companies market like mad. Where’s the harm? Critics say the ads drive up health-care costs because they push the newest, most expensive drugs. For example, the heartburn remedy Prilosec costs about 13 times as much as the leading generic equivalent. If price is now mainly an issue between drug companies and consumers, it could eventually drive up the cost of Medicare benefits and thus affect everyone who pays taxes, not just those who suffer from acid reflux or chronic indigestion.
The FDA has shown no indications of reversing its decision on direct-to-consumer drug ads, nor should it, necessarily. One could certainly argue that if TV can be used to promote foods that give people heartburn and high cholesterol, the least the FDA can do is give antidotes a fair shot. It would be nice, however, if the issue got a good debating on some TV programs. This would be a great topic for “Nightline,” assuming that ABC doesn’t cancel it.
In the end, the market may correct itself. There’s a certain irony in the possibility that relief may be spelled GM and Ford. They’re among a growing number of corporations that, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, have been hit so hard by their workers and retirees’ use of heavily advertised, costlier prescription drugs that they’ve launched campaigns to promote generics.
Meanwhile, four out of five TV critics recommend taking a chill pill and resisting those spicy fried chicken fingers.
