Originally published July 12 2005
Action on drug advertising ban deferred by AMA
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Critics say drug advertising increases healthcare costs and risk factors for patients, but the American Medical Association has deferred taking any action on a proposed ban of drug advertising for a year, Reuters reports.
The American Medical Association on Tuesday deferred action for at least a year on urging a proposed ban on consumer advertising for new prescription drugs that critics say increases health-care costs and poses risks for patients.
AMA delegates asked for more study of a call by some members for pharmaceutical companies to ban or declare a moratorium on the estimated $3 billion in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising.
"What we're wanting is a comprehensive approach to how the advertising affects the patient-physician relationship, along with the cost and benefits and other issues around direct advertising," the AMA's Dr. Rebecca Patchin, a California anesthesiologist, told reporters.
Among those issues are the free-speech right of drug makers to advertise, the questionable usefulness of small-print warnings accompanying such ads and the benefit of having patients seek treatment after seeing an advertisement.
Rod Blagojevich sent a letter this week to the AMA -- the largest U.S. doctors' group -- urging that it request the ban on the drug advertising, saying the industry cared more about profits than patients.
Experts say heavy advertising for a class of painkillers, including Merck's Vioxx, persuaded millions of patients -- many of whom doctors believe did not need to switch to the more expensive drugs -- to ask their doctors to prescribe them.
Late last year, Vioxx was pulled from the market after it was shown to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, a development critics said showed the dangers of promoting drugs that must later be recalled.
Last week, Bristol-Myers Squibb said it would wait a year before advertising newly launched drugs to consumers -- the first pharmaceutical company to make such a pledge.
The AMA also decided not to ask the FDA to reconsider the "black box" warning the regulator ordered affixed to the most popular class of antidepressant drugs.
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