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I don't know. Ads for monoclonal antibody therapies against COVID would probably save lives - by convincing doctors to use them. Smoking cessation products (the

I don't know. Ads for monoclonal antibody therapies against COVID would probably save lives - by convincing doctors to use them. Smoking cessation products (they are prescribable for insurance reimbursement purposes) definitely save lives. Lots of smokers in Japan. What about PReP? It's prescription only. Lofexidine? It's not so black and white. If your conclusion is, make stuff over the counter, I feel like you're missing the point. Of course promoting drugs that work are a great outcome. Like what are we even talking about?

gjulianm 6y ago
> by convincing doctors to use them. I don't think it's patients the ones that need to convince the doctors of what to use. If anything, patients demanding solutions without any knowledge of whether they're useful or not would make treatment much more difficult. > Smoking cessation products A lot of smoking cessation products are over the counter. Here in Spain I see ads about them, and we have the same prohibition of adverts of prescription meds. > What about PReP? It's prescription only Sexual education covers this, no need to monetize ads. Not to mention that the return on investment on an anti-HIV medication is probably not ideal > Lofexidine Again, I doubt the market for opioid withdrawal meds is high enough. > Of course promoting drugs that work are a great outcome. Like what are we even talking about? Doctors are the one that prescribe drugs, not patients. Why would you need to market a prescription drug that one takes only after a doctor visit to patients? They are not the ones making the decision on the drug. They do not have the information required to evaluate whether the drug is appropriate or not. At best, ads for prescription drugs will be useless because it's the doctor that makes the decision. At worst it encourages self-medication and forces doctors to make non-optimal choices due to patient pressure. The only ones that stand to benefit from prescription drugs ads are pharmaceutical companies and ad agencies.
tsimionescu 6y ago
> Of course promoting drugs that work are a great outcome. Like what are we even talking about? If it works, there's no need to promote it, your doctor will know about it from better sources than TV ads. The purpose of TV ads for prescription medicine is to induce nagging behavior - trying to convince patients to nag their doctors and so increase the sales of these things. Like all advertising, it is a practice meant to distort our behavior in a way that makes us better consumers.
- grawprog 6y ago
  >If it works, there's no need to promote it, your doctor will know about it from better sources than TV ads. Yeah they've got the drug sales reps showing up weekly with food and possibly lapdances[1] telling the doctors all they need to know about how to make the drug companies more money. [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/30/stripper-turned-pharma-exec-gave-doctor-lap-dance-get-him-prescribe-drugs-officials-say/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/30/stripper-... More context https://www.financierworldwide.com/bribery-and-corruption-in-the-pharmaceutical-sector#.YCsQ2q96qDY https://www.financierworldwide.com/bribery-and-corruption-in...
DanBC 6y ago
In most places with bans on ads for prescribed meds you can advertise to doctors. That's why some websites have banners saying "for medical professionals only" -- they also run ads for prescription meds.
pjc50 6y ago
The NHS advertises smoking cessation in general terms, and non-prescription patches etc are indeed advertised. > Like what are we even talking about? There's a long history of patients being easily suckered into ineffective or inappropriate medications, or even being persuaded that a condition exists that they wouldn't have been worried about otherwise. And of unscrupulous marketers persuading them to spend money on this. Has everyone forgotten the opiates scandal? https://www.ft.com/content/7cf7b242-a6e1-11e9-984c-fac8325aaa04 https://www.ft.com/content/7cf7b242-a6e1-11e9-984c-fac8325aa... Or previously OxyContin (2009): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/ Medicine is supposed to be a science. It's supposed to be possible to determine accurately what condition someone has, what the appropriate medications to treat them might be, and for them to make an informed choice. Marketing is the opposite of that in every respect: it's incentivized to mislead people, even if it kills them.

gjulianm 6y ago

> by convincing doctors to use them. I don't think it's patients the ones that need to convince the doctors of what to use. If anything, patients demanding solutions without any knowledge of whether they're useful or not would make treatment much more difficult. > Smoking cessation products A lot of smoking cessation products are over the counter. Here in Spain I see ads about them, and we have the same prohibition of adverts of prescription meds. > What about PReP? It's prescription only Sexual education covers this, no need to monetize ads. Not to mention that the return on investment on an anti-HIV medication is probably not ideal > Lofexidine Again, I doubt the market for opioid withdrawal meds is high enough. > Of course promoting drugs that work are a great outcome. Like what are we even talking about? Doctors are the one that prescribe drugs, not patients. Why would you need to market a prescription drug that one takes only after a doctor visit to patients? They are not the ones making the decision on the drug. They do not have the information required to evaluate whether the drug is appropriate or not. At best, ads for prescription drugs will be useless because it's the doctor that makes the decision. At worst it encourages self-medication and forces doctors to make non-optimal choices due to patient pressure. The only ones that stand to benefit from prescription drugs ads are pharmaceutical companies and ad agencies.

tsimionescu 6y ago

> Of course promoting drugs that work are a great outcome. Like what are we even talking about? If it works, there's no need to promote it, your doctor will know about it from better sources than TV ads. The purpose of TV ads for prescription medicine is to induce nagging behavior - trying to convince patients to nag their doctors and so increase the sales of these things. Like all advertising, it is a practice meant to distort our behavior in a way that makes us better consumers.

grawprog 6y ago
>If it works, there's no need to promote it, your doctor will know about it from better sources than TV ads. Yeah they've got the drug sales reps showing up weekly with food and possibly lapdances[1] telling the doctors all they need to know about how to make the drug companies more money. [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/30/stripper-turned-pharma-exec-gave-doctor-lap-dance-get-him-prescribe-drugs-officials-say/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/30/stripper-... More context https://www.financierworldwide.com/bribery-and-corruption-in-the-pharmaceutical-sector#.YCsQ2q96qDY https://www.financierworldwide.com/bribery-and-corruption-in...

DanBC 6y ago

In most places with bans on ads for prescribed meds you can advertise to doctors. That's why some websites have banners saying "for medical professionals only" -- they also run ads for prescription meds.

pjc50 6y ago

The NHS advertises smoking cessation in general terms, and non-prescription patches etc are indeed advertised. > Like what are we even talking about? There's a long history of patients being easily suckered into ineffective or inappropriate medications, or even being persuaded that a condition exists that they wouldn't have been worried about otherwise. And of unscrupulous marketers persuading them to spend money on this. Has everyone forgotten the opiates scandal? https://www.ft.com/content/7cf7b242-a6e1-11e9-984c-fac8325aaa04 https://www.ft.com/content/7cf7b242-a6e1-11e9-984c-fac8325aa... Or previously OxyContin (2009): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/ Medicine is supposed to be a science. It's supposed to be possible to determine accurately what condition someone has, what the appropriate medications to treat them might be, and for them to make an informed choice. Marketing is the opposite of that in every respect: it's incentivized to mislead people, even if it kills them.