Consumers Should Be Wary of Ads for Prescription Drugs, Wall Street Journal Columnist Says

Ads for prescription drugs "are an undeniably powerful force in the American health care scene, perhaps as important as advances in biology in affecting treatment decisions," columnist Michael Waldholz writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. Although prescription drugs have an undeniable benefit in that they have reduced "untold misery" for many Americans, the fear that "aggressive marketing" by pharmaceutical companies "exploits and even promotes a distinctly American-style of looking for a quick fix whenever something ails us" is "understandable," he adds. Americans "recognize that advertising manipulates consumer choice," but ads that use "sophisticated" marketing techniques also can have a "potent effect on human health," Waldholz writes. He cites a Kaiser Family Foundation study that found 30% of consumers who saw a prescription drug ad asked their doctors about the treatment, and 13% of them said that their doctors prescribed the medication. While health researchers have not yet determined whether the "deluge in drug advertising is a prescription for bad medicine," consumers "should use the same hefty skepticism we bring to buying other consumer products, exploiting the information we get from [drug] ads to help us to ask better questions of our health care provider," Waldholz concludes (Waldholz, Wall Street Journal, 7/11).