Benefits of Allowing Prescription Drug TV Ads

[Doggo]

I'm pretty familiar with the long list of cons but are there any pros to allowing companies to market prescription drugs on TV?

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[Lawpy]

I'm pretty familiar with the long list of cons but are there any pros to allowing companies to market prescription drugs on TV?

#1: Freedom to advertise and carry out business

US is still a market economy, so companies are allowed to market prescription drugs.

 

[efle]

$

 

[AnotherLawyer]

I'm pretty familiar with the long list of cons but are there any pros to allowing companies to market prescription drugs on TV?

The First Amendment.

 

[Terry Toma]

Without televised drug ads, I never would have discovered that erectile disfunction exclusively afflicts super fit and active people. Very informative, these ads.

 

[Terry Toma]

(deleted double post)

 

[Doggo]

But beyond the first amendment, do they actually contribute anything? I get that it's important to let them advertise, but can anyone think of how they improve patient care?

 

[AnotherLawyer]

But beyond the first amendment, do they actually contribute anything? I get that it's important to let them advertise, but can anyone think of how they improve patient care?

I'm not saying I agree with this, but if people don't have access to an attentive PCP and aren't educated enough to research health issues themselves, they may suffer from treatable conditions without realizing treatment options exist. Ads help educated these people.

 

[Raryn]

I can think of two situations where it may benefit the patient:
1) Puts the symptoms of a disease (which now has a newish treatment) front and center, which leads them to talk about it with their physician rather than think it's normal.
2) Pushes them to advocate for themselves to get their treatment changed to something that may be more convenient to them. For example, the last dozen years there's been an explosion of treatments for diabetes, but if you're overall doing well your physician might not want to change your therapy. Why would he? Your numbers are great. But if you hear about this great new pill/shot that might mean you get to take shots of insulin less often... maybe just asking about it could lead to change that is more convenient to you. Now, a good physician should frequently re-evaluate therapies for his patient in light of any new options, but inertia is a powerful force and there's a component of "if it ain't broke..." in there.

 

[SSSMDt]

I can think of two situations where it may benefit the patient:
1) Puts the symptoms of a disease (which now has a newish treatment) front and center, which leads them to talk about it with their physician rather than think it's normal.
2) Pushes them to advocate for themselves to get their treatment changed to something that may be more convenient to them. For example, the last dozen years there's been an explosion of treatments for diabetes, but if you're overall doing well your physician might not want to change your therapy. Why would he? Your numbers are great. But if you hear about this great new pill/shot that might mean you get to take shots of insulin less often... maybe just asking about it could lead to change that is more convenient to you. Now, a good physician should frequently re-evaluate therapies for his patient in light of any new options, but inertia is a powerful force and there's a component of "if it ain't broke..." in there.

1) I feel like advertising the disease, and really just frequent preventative health visits with PCP, as opposed to advertising the drug itself would be most appropriate. Im happy with the relatively newer advertisement exposure to pancreatic insufficiency for example that tailors well to this, but advertising specific drugs I worry leads more people to default on their medication rather than elicit an honest and open discussion about it with their doctor.. at least that my anecdotal experience.

2) This is really the only argument I've been convinced of for them. But even here I could imagine downfalls.

 

[SSSMDt]

As a side note.. imagine somehow it becomes proven that the costs of drug advertisements far outweigh the benefits. You try to prevent the advertisements of drugs and that'll just compound the mistrust that the general public might have in the health system.

 

[blackroses]

I'll jump on board with the "encouraging patients to advocate for themselves" perspective. A lot of patients don't even realize this is an option - they take whatever any doctor they happen to see says at face value, and that's the end of it. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this works out fine and at worst results in a patient having to deal with a few minor side effects that might not necessarily be present with another medication, or with the patient being on a less convenient regiment. However there are cases where patients could greatly benefit from advocating for themselves and many don't do so simply because they don't even know it's an option. An advertisement mentioning something along the lines of "discuss this medication with your doctor" does introduce people to the idea that they can in fact advocate for themselves to their doctors.

Are there better ways to accomplish this? Sure. But you could argue this is a minor benefit of drug advertisements.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Moving to topics in healthcare because this doesn't involve pre-allo at all