Essay Sample on Drug Info: Misleading Consumers or Evidence-Based?

Introduction

Drug information is supposed to be reliable, of good quality, comparative and independent and prescription ads do not represent any of these virtues. The information which is aimed at selling the product is what reaches the consumers and not that aimed at subjecting consumers to evidence-based or well-balanced information. The main aim of any company is to ensure returns on investments and a pharmaceutical company is no exception, and they tend to downplay the negative side by emphasizing on the positive side (Hoen 595). Therefore pharmacists should engage in their role as providers for health and drug information more actively in a way to counter commercial information.

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According to Krishnamurthi, prescription ads are a way of increasing the income for pharmaceutical companies through the creation of awareness and increasing the number of patients' visits. This applies to drug makers and doctors too that are tasked with making and prescription of drugs. Prescription ads have an impact on the choice and treatment decisions that affects the doctor's decision of a drug to prescribe to illness and the patients' motive to seek treatment. Brand and category ads dictate the choice of drug patients seek as they tend to prescribe drugs for themselves that match the symptoms advertised by a brand or company. As reported by Gellad and Lyles, prescription ads motivate patients to seek medication unnecessarily, and doctors to choosing specific drugs as it is only companies with more prominent brands market shares that are involved in advertising. Such ads urge patients to speak to their doctors and get prescriptions they need without the need of a medical checkup. Such a personal diagnosis of patients can lead to complication or development of the existing disease.

Ads motivate patients to take drugs unnecessarily. As stated by Kennedy, patients could see an ad and inquire about it from their doctors and start taking them even though there might be other drugs that could be just as effective. Ads thus affect our choice of drugs by creating the need to try other drugs rather than the ones that the patient is used to without the need to find out the side effects of the drug. Therefore prescription of drugs should be left on the hands of physicians with expertise in the area. In consonance to Taurel, prescription ads are like a ruling of which drugs are better than others which simply does not work. They tend to increase the buying of drugs on pharmaceuticals as patients try to avoid the costly medical interventions associated with health centres. Ads are a way of making choices on drugs to patients and making them active consumers of their healthcare products. The decision making power should be left in the hands of the patient's physician since different patients experience different receptions to different products. Patients need to gather information on the effectiveness of the products.

Ads have caused changes in the medical field, such as the push for value-based medicine and the rise in the online promotion of pharmaceuticals. They prove to be a challenge to healthcare providers seeking to give utmost care to their patients. Healthcare providers are the expected intermediaries between the patients and the product providers; thus, ads affect the relationship on the patient and provider (Sullivan, Aikin, Berktold, Stein and Hoverman 3). Prescription ads give the patients an idea that a doctor is not needed when determining if a prescription drug is right for them or not. In line with Wilkes, Michael, Bell and Kravitz, prescription ads are not usually subjected to review by Food and drug administration; thus, ads may contain inaccuracies. Accurate information is a necessity for making informed choices making inaccuracies a danger to making the most favourable prescriptions for patients. Ads tend to increase the trend towards patients autonomy which undermines the ethical norms of medical practice. This will create a generation of well-informed patients who will assume an active role in reaching their health goals while on the other hand, having a world of distrustful, aggressive and partially informed patients and rattled physicians.

Decisional capacity impairments often seen in consumers suffering from illnesses increases patients vulnerability to the dictating influence of prescription ads and thus undermines the consumers' autonomy that this marketing strategy is said to promote. According to Hollon, prescription ads are only beneficial to underrated conditions. The quality of ads should be based on the credibility of information provided and the type of drugs being advocated. There are many pieces of evidence that prescription ads are inaccurate or unbalanced, and doctors may not resist the patient's demands to write them a prescription. Consumers often chose products on the grounds of emotional attributes which is dictated by ads (Sydney 525). People often believe that only the most effective and safest drugs could be directly advertised to consumers and that the food and drug administration has reviewed and allowed the advertisements, which is incorrect.

Prescription ads inflate demands for upcoming and more expensive drugs that may not favour patients' conditions. They may also cause a hike in drug prices as a result of advertising and marketing costs incurred by the company (Birkner 16). Ads result in patients asking for more drugs from their doctors, thus driving up the cost of the brand whereas there could be cheaper drugs yet the physicians decide to prescribe a drug, Stacey lee points out. According to Haavi, ads make people feel more entitled to the hottest, greatest and latest treatments and medications since they are not willing to spend more on their health. Thus, consumers need to be more realistic and avoid the economic advantage that comes along with these ads. The ads are designed to create comfort and foster familiarity with the drugs through the creation of a relationship and gratitude going along with it. This thus affects patients' autonomy in making uninformed decisions.

Ads help sell everyday peoples experiences as symptoms of medical conditions in need of treatment with drugs. Ads `portray many aspects of ordinary life like hair loss as part of a medical condition and pushes the boundaries of medical control to be far too wide. Many ads nowadays promote medical conditions instead of just drugs, thus helping medicalize life (Moynihan and Cassels 24). Giving drugs to healthy people is likely to shift their balance as the likelihood of benefit becomes much smaller, which is likely to cause more harm to the individual.

Conclusion

In summary, prescription ads tend to cause more harm than good to the consumers of pharmaceutical ads while being beneficial to drug companies. Ads information tend to be unbalanced and unreliable, leading patients to make uninformed decisions without the help of healthcare professionals. This goes against medical ethics and proves to be a danger to the health of humans. They only exist to the benefit of pharmaceutical companies whose only main aim is to ensure continuous returns to their investments and to keep the company a loop. Prescription ads can thus be termed as a disease to consumers.

Works Cited

Birkner, Christine. "Rewriting the Scrip." Ad week, vol. 57, no. 11, 2016, pp. 15-18, http://nuls.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.nuls.idm.oclc.org/docview/1781525988?accountid=25320. Accessed 29 Sep. 2016.

Gellad, Ziad F., and Kenneth W. Lyles. "Direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals." The American journal of medicine 120.6 (2007): 475-480.

Hoen, Ellen 'T. "Direct-to-consumer advertising: for better profits or for better health?" American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy 55.6 (1998): 594-597.

Morreim, E. Haavi. "Prescribing under the Influence." Santa Clara University, 2001, https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/bioethics/resources/prescribing-under-the-influence/. Accessed 29 Sep. 2016.

Moynihan, Ray, and Alan Cassels. "A Disease for Every Pill." Nation, vol. 281, no. 12, 2005, pp. 22-25, http://nuls.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=18417661&site=ehost-live. Accessed 29 Sep. 2016.

Public Broadcasting Service. "The Other Drug War." Frontline, 19 June 2003, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/other/interviews/taurel.html. Accessed 29 Sep. 2016.

Scott, Dylan. "The Untold Story of TV's First Prescription Drug Ad." STAT, 11 Dec. 2015, https://www.statnews.com/2015/12/11/untold-story-tvs-first-prescription-drug-ad/. Accessed 29 Sep. 2016.

Sullivan, Helen W., et al. "Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising and patient-provider interactions." The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine 33.2 (2020): 279-283.

Wilkes, Michael S., Robert A. Bell, and Richard L. Kravitz. "Direct-To-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising: Trends, Impact, And Implications: Aiming drug ads at consumers means big business for drug companies, but its effect on clinical care is not yet known." Health affairs 19.2 (2000): 110-128.

Wolfe, Sidney M. "Direct-to-consumer advertising-education or emotion promotion?" (2002): 524-526.

Xie, Ying, and Lakshaman Krishnamurthi. "Talk to Your Doctor About..." KelloggInsight, 2 Mar. 2011, http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/talk_to_your_doctor_about. Accessed 29 Sep. 2016