DTC Bill: Fine Print & Fuzzy Pictures

As a Senate committee gets ready to push legislation, which would give the FDA the option to ban DTC ads for new drugs for two years, the rhetoric inside the Beltway is heating up.

Consumer advocates, among others, say a two-year moratorium provides enough time to gauge safety among a sufficiently large population. Opponents say the ban would violate commercial free speech and hurt drugmakers in the collective pocketbook.

Here are a few well-chosen remarks:

“We don’t know, and we won’t know, how truly safe a drug is until it’s been used in millions of people,” says Consumers Union analyst Bill Vaughan. “The real testing of these drugs takes place after a pill hits the market and that’s why the advertising needs to be regulated.”

“Banning this information even for just a couple of years is not in the best interest of patients and physicians who every day make important health care decisions,” argues Ken Johnson, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America trade group, which pushed voluntary guidelines to little effect.

“In our system of jurisprudence we have a very high threshold that protects the right to free speech, whether it’s political or commercial,” posits Jim Davidson, an attorney for the Advertising Coalition, which is funded by ad firms and drugmakers. “What they’re saying with this ban is ‘we don’t know where the harm is, but we know there’s a statistical likelihood that some adverse event will occur, therefore you can’t promote your product.’”

Fast facts:

- Under a deal between the FDA and industry, drugmakers would pay the agency more than $80,000 for each ad reviewed in 2008. The FDA would hire 27 new employees.

- Drugmakers spent nearly $5 billion on DTC ads last year, says Nielsen Media Research. A 2004 study found that Americans watch an average of 30 hours of drug ads per year.

Source: Associated Press[tags]DTC Advertising[/tags]