| Pharmaceutical companies need to be more responsible in touting their products to consumers or else face tighter controls from Congress, a top U.S. Democratic lawmaker said last week. Rep. Bart Stupak, at a hearing to discuss specific ads by Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Schering–Plough, said television commercials in particular use deceptive techniques to push their products to potential patients and increase sales, Reuters reports.
"It appears that we need to enforce significant restrictions on DTC (direct–to–consumer) ads to protect American consumers from manipulative commercials designed to mislead and deceive for the profit of pharmaceutical companies," said Stupak, head of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce investigative panel. The Michigan Democrat said Congress should consider whether ads promoting medicines should be allowed to continue to target consumers in the United States, the only country that allows such marketing except for New Zealand, reports Reuters writer Susan Heavey.
"Pharmaceutical companies should consider it a privilege to be allowed to air DTC ads in this country," he said, adding: "We should make sure that pharmaceuticals companies conduct themselves responsibly."
At the hearing, lawmakers focused on TV ads for Merck's and Schering–Plough's controversial Vytorin cholesterol drug that cited "food and family" as two sources of cholesterol and called on patients to consider medication if diet changes alone did not help. Deepak Khanna, senior vice president and general manager of the companies' joint venture, defended the spots, saying they were reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and were backed by research.
Lawmakers also looked at ads for Pfizer's cholesterol drug Lipitor featuring artificial heart inventor Robert Jarvik, who had prompted some concern for appearing to be offering medical advice without being a practicing physician. James Sage, a Pfizer senior director, defended the ads in an industry where companies cannot sell their prescription products directly to consumers. Such patient–targeted spots "motivate them to seek additional information ... consult their physicians ... and follow treatment plans," he said in prepared remarks.
Although ads for both drugs were suspended, several Republican lawmakers agreed with the companies, saying such commercials help prompt patients to seek therapy for their high cholesterol, a widespread chronic condition that can lead to heart disease.
Ranking Republican John Shimkus of Illinois said it was too soon for lawmakers to consider intervening, citing new powers granted to the FDA to crack down on drug ads that went into effect earlier this year.
"We gave the FDA power to act, and we haven't really given them time to really impose civil fines on false and misleading ads," said Shimkus, noting ads by the four drugmakers ran before the agency could use its new tools. |
