Debate rages over direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs

• Don Schilling, a Los Angeles public relations consultant, is a savvy consumer of marketing ploys and, at 57, a man growing more attuned to the allures of pills and potions that promise to boost his health.
• For drug makers pitching their prescription medications directly to American consumers, Schilling, a retired Army officer, refers to himself as a "high-value" target.
• Americans who watch TV, listen to the radio or flip through a magazine these days are bombarded with advertisements designed to pique interest in a most unlikely consumer product: prescription drugs.
• But at a time when the safety and cost of such medications have become hot-button political issues, politicians, patients and those who tend to the nation's health are viewing these ads with a new wariness.
• Michael Guarini, a partner with the advertising leader Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, calls this "the perfect storm" in drug advertising, as many forces gather to reform the young industry.
• The debate over prescription drug advertising has gained new momentum since the popular arthritis drug Vioxx was withdrawn from the market in September 2004 over safety concerns.
• For several years, Vioxx was the most aggressively promoted drug on the market, with direct-to-consumer advertising spending reaching almost $300 million between 2000 and 2001.
• Other studies suggest that it enhances communication between patients and their physicians, that it increases the diagnosis of many serious conditions, and that it has helped remove the stigma of many illnesses, such as depression and erectile dysfunction.
• The authors, from Emory University School of Medicine, estimated that an average viewer was probably exposed to more than 30 hours of drug ads in 2001 -- about a third of them for drugs available only when prescribed by a doctor.