Author: Sofija Podvisocka

Turning on the TV in any American household almost certainly foretells the appearance of a drug commercial on the screen. America’s liberal direct-to-consumer-advertising (DCTA) policies help directly encourage consumers to ask their healthcare providers for certain medications. This allows Big Pharma companies to push promotional agendas under the guise of informing the public. Many of these advertisements are mostly harmless, such as commercials for over-the-counter allergy medications. However, the increased emphasis on marketing pharmaceuticals is also one of the major causes behind the half a million Americans succumbing to opioid overdose.

While DTCA is only fully legal in the United States and New Zealand, there have been recent proposals to loosen DTCA regulations in Europe as well.

While DTCA has certain merits, such as creating a platform to educate individuals on certain options for medication through commericals, it also has certain drawbacks. For one, it furthers the power imbalance between pharmaceutical companies and physicians. It holds the ability to sway a public one way or another through direct marketing tactics

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Even more distressing is its history of false advertising, such as Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin campaign in the 1990s. This campaign actively asserted that the medication was non-habit forming and that pain was a vital sign to be treated directly. When Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin in 1996, it advertised the drug as a safe alternative to other opioids due to its unique period release of the compound, which ultimately proved to be untrue. As seen on the ad here, no direct risk of dependence is mentioned except in the very fine print, where it reads that this should be treated with the “degree of caution appropriate to the use of a drug with abuse potential”– a particularly optimistic view of the reality. These companies routinely supplemented their advertisements with aggressive sales initiatives directly targeting healthcare providers; they often incentivized physicians to push painkillers with promise of financial return.

On one hand, the increased availability of information improved public health literacy– the ability for individuals to make their own, informed choices about treatment. However, it also relied on the lack of formal experience of these individuals in order to sway their decisions. By targeting both consumers and physicians, organizations like Purdue Pharma increased revenues from OxyContin up to $3 billion a year within 15 years. The general combination of medicine and marketing led to a rise in the abuse of certain medications, opioids and benzodiazepines being at the forefront.

Prior to the DTCA ban, however, European pharmaceutical companies also often advertised their medications. Notoriously, the German company Bayer’s commercialized and promoted heroin products for both adults and children. It seems almost comical now to see heroin sold as a sweetened syrup. Most of these advertisements come from a much earlier era, the majority stemming from the early 20th century. Perhaps they were enough to ingrain the use of the habitual analgesics into European society, the repercussions of which are still prevalent today.

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