10 December 2015

The AMA, Those Pharma Ads, and My Thinking Cap

Only a handful of posts ago I had fun poking fun at all those DTC ads:

25 June 2015
Looking great, but we’re very ill.
http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-om_VzOrj3bE/VYxZtfjgMOI/AAAAAAAAIHQ/ptrtQLaVWdQ/fish2_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800… Most of the time we’re in slow motion.  We float around the screen, dreamlike, as if drifting in a digitized aquarium.

But we look pretty good, usually. Although during all this surreal sashaying, the voice overs warn us not all is well.

Now the AMA wants to ban them:

Turn the Volume Down on Drug Ads
image… The American Medical Association’s House of Delegates voted this month in favor of a ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs and medical devices. Its officers argued that such advertising “inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate…

Not everybody agrees:

Banning TV Drug Ads: Could the Cure Cause More Harm Than Good?
image… In a response to the AMA call for a ban, it said the ads increase consumer awareness of available treatments for diseases, including undiagnosed conditions, according to a Reuters report.

imageI’m not qualified to take a position on all this.  However, if I hadn’t read these news items, and someone said to me, “So, Chuck … the AMA wants to ban DTC ads.  Can you guess why?” -- I’d probably put on my thinking cap and say:

Grampy2“Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm.  Well, the AMA usually wants to ban things because it thinks whatever is unhealthy for you. So my guess is that it thinks pharma ads are unhealthy for you! Maybe they got the idea from some of my  posts about how DTC ads make people ill – like this post from 2009…

If every time someone over fifty sees a commercial targeting them and it’s always for an age-related product or service, pretty soon their eyes will glaze over, they’ll get itchy and grumpy….

So did I influence the AMA?  Or am I hallucinating – like the lady in this DTC ad?

You decide.