Dtc Prescription Drug Advertising Case Study

DTC Prescription Drug Advertisements: Wasteful or Beneficial? The $395 billion United States Pharmaceutical industry spent $5.2 billion on advertising drugs directly to consumers in 2015 (procon.org). This is an extremely excessive amount of money spent on a topic that is quite irrelevant. The United States and New Zealand are the only countries where drug makers are allowed to market prescription drugs directly to consumers (Harvard’s Health). The fact that only two countries in the world permit DTC prescription drug advertising shows how they are not very important to live a healthy life. “Older men are a prime target for prescription drug advertisements since they are prone to multiple chronic health conditions, but they should approach them critically as a resource for information and not as answers to questions about treatment (Dr. Ameet Sarpatwari).” It is unacceptable to target certain weaker groups such as older men because sometimes they will do whatever it …show more content…
It is a form of trickery and it is wrong. There are two different types’ of prescription drug ads. A product claim ad names a drug, notes its generic name and condition it treats, and talks about both benefits and risks in a balanced fashion (Harvard’s Health). A reminder ad gives the drug’s name, but not the drug’s use. The assumption is that the audience already knows what the drug is for (Harvard’s Health). The reminder drug ads are mainly the ones that come up during commercial breaks. They come to a conclusion that the watcher knows what the drug is used for and explains all the benefits and leaves out the effects that may occur after the fact. Direct-to- Consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising should be banned from the United States because it misinforms patients, weakens relationships between