Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Accuracy in advertising

Accuracy in advertising
Truth in advertising is an important requirement to help protect citizens from overzealous claims and characterizations of
products.  Potential customers must be allowed to judge their purchases against some objective standards presented in
a standard format designed to facilitate comparison.  Still, truth does not need to involve stunningly detailed accuracy in cases where the consumer is not the person who chooses which products to try and not try. I’m addressing television and radio ads for prescription medicines, ads that must provide a listing of most of the reported mild side-effects and
serious, adverse effects that have been observed in clinical trials and post-approval use.  The verbalized lists,
or even written ones presented over a few second period, are simply too long for a consumer to recall.  About seven
numbers is what most people can recall and that’s when they are attending.  After hearing more than a couple ads for
medicines, I’m very sure that the consumer is not specifically attending to the laundry list of side- and adverse effects, unless perhaps there is one they have had trouble with.  And what would consumers do with the list even if they could remember them?  Almost all chemical compounds can produce life-threatening reactions, allergic reactions if nothing else. Will a consumer not mention a new, to them, drug because the list contained life-threatening?  And, if they
don’t recall exactly what the conditions leading to life-threatening are, they are probably more likely to confuse rather than inform their physician.  In addition, I feel it is doubtful they would compare the list between possible medicines for their ailments, and such comparisons would be incorrect anyway because they weren’t (in most cases)
directly compared between products in a statistically relevant manner. 
In this case, truth is overwhelmed by detailed accuracy, in a manner largely useless to the consumer. It is useful to present approved medicines so that people can ask their physicians’ about whether ailments they have (seem to have) might be reduced pharmacologically and/or whether a new medicine might be more effective than ones they have been using.  But, the consumer does not, cannot, choose the medicinal product.  Only certified physicians can do that!  The physician must be allowed the data by which to make their own judgments about the usefulness of medicines for their patients, and which medicines are likely to be best tolerated by their patients’ with specific histories of diseases and concomitant medicine use. 
The FDA has, as always, erred on the side of safety.  However, advertisements for medicines aimed at general, non-prescribing, audiences are not made safer by listing all/most/many of the side-effects and adverse effects reported.  I fully believe that these listings are simply tuned out, and even if attended to, would be of little value to the potential consumer – the consumer is not the person who will, must, evaluate the product and make the choice to use it. 
Truth would be well served by carefully stating the use which the FDA approved, and not overstepping that boundary, coupled with a statement that one’s physician will judge the product against the side- and adverse-effects that have been observed in people and their relevance to a particular patient.  Advertising to the general public in no way reduces physicians’ obligations to make these choices.  They must consult with the patient to ensure they have considered the patient fully, but the patient does not have any right to self-prescribe prescription medicine.
I would prefer to watch the Super Bowl, for example, without hearing about nausea and drowsiness and whatever else has been reported.
 I am not the first to voice this opinion, and am not likely to be the last… still, accuracy can overwhelm truth in advertising, and in so doing, reduce the critical value of the truth.  And that's an important truth to tell.

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