CI5472 Teaching Film, Television, and Media

Module 6: Studying Advertising

Advertising and the Pharmaceutical Industry

Another major advertiser is the pharmaceutical industry which advertises the use of ads for treating a range of problems, particularly given the fact that Congress, spurred on by industry lobbying, forced the Food and Drug Administration to loosen controls on drug advertising. While ads do have to mention negative side effects, they often do not have to go into detail about those side effects. Much of the cost of this advertising has resulted in the industry refusing to lower the costs of drugs in the United States, which, unlike other countries such as Canada, does not bargain directly with the industry to set drug prices. These ads are effective in that various studies find that people are increasingly more likely to ask doctors about these drugs.
PBS Now program with Bill Moyers: A Brief History of Drug Advertising

One doctor, Michael Wilkes, of the University of California, Davis, Medical School, noted that these “direct-to-consumer” ads attempt to work around the doctor by fostering a belief that patients have certain health problems that need to be treated:

In both cases, the goal is to get patients to seek attention for conditions that they previously considered benign or natural. The ads also seek to make their product sound remark able compared to other existing treatments. The goal is to get patients using one drug to switch to another…
Patients ask about ads that encourage them to focus on trivial somatic complaints or cosmetic anomalies, leading to unhealthy bodily preoccupation and inappropriate use of health services. The ads often lead to physician-patient conflict as a result of the doctor’s unwillingness to prescribe an unnecessary or costly drug. The patient leaves the office dissatisfied and disrespected.

Belkin, L. (2001). Prime Time Pushers. Mother Jones Magazine