Sunday, July 01, 2007

Banning DTC Ads

Doctors want direct-to-consumer drug ads banned. A ban might work if everyone had an established relationship with and made regular visits to a provider who kept up-to-date on the latest developments in pharmaceutical research. We do not live in that world.

If you think that everyone has a certain problem, or that acquiring that problem is inevitable, why would you go to the doctor about it? If you tried a treatment years ago and it failed, how would you know that there are new drugs or formulations that might work for you? Is it realistic to expect patients to talk to their doctors about amorphous clusters of maybe-symptoms, given that they rarely have more than a few minutes with the doctor?
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