The Senate Special Committee on Aging sent a letter today to the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations suggesting they collaborate on their investigations into direct-to-consumer advertising of both prescription drugs and medical devices.

The Senate Aging committee recently held hearings on DTC ads for devices in a bid to get the FDA to apply the same level of scrutiny given DTC ads for prescription drugs (back story). A collaboration would allow the committtees to coordinate their efforts.

“I’m aware that your subcommittee staff has done outstanding work in uncovering deceptive and misleading DTC ads sponsored by the drug industry, which has spent billions of dollars on such marketing efforts during the past decade or so,” Herb Kohl, who chairs the Senate Aging committee, in a letter to Bart Stupak, who chairs the House oversight subcommittee.

“We would welcome any further exchange of information with the subcommittee on this important matter, and we stand ready to work with you and your able professional staff in addressing these DTC advertising issues in a cooperative and bicameral manner.” Here’s the letter.

We await a reply from the House subcommittee.