Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 42 views

    Have These Symptoms Buy This Drug by Pauline Chen

    Uploaded by

    superherosaves
    Direct-to-consumer drug advertising began in 1997 when the FDA loosened regulations, allowing pharmaceutical companies to market directly to patients. Companies aim to define and promote both the drugs and the diseases they treat through marketing strategies like symptom checklists. Checklists influence patient preferences by encouraging self-diagnosis. While few patients explicitly request advertised drugs, American patients are more likely to do so than those in countries where direct advertising is banned. The widespread use of checklists and other marketing expands industry influence over how patients understand their health.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Have These Symptoms Buy This Drug by Pauline Chen

    Uploaded by

    superherosaves
    42 views3 pages
    Direct-to-consumer drug advertising began in 1997 when the FDA loosened regulations, allowing pharmaceutical companies to market directly to patients. Companies aim to define and promote both the drugs and the diseases they treat through marketing strategies like symptom checklists. Checklists influence patient preferences by encouraging self-diagnosis. While few patients explicitly request advertised drugs, American patients are more likely to do so than those in countries where direct advertising is banned. The widespread use of checklists and other marketing expands industry influence over how patients understand their health.

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Direct-to-consumer drug advertising began in 1997 when the FDA loosened regulations, allowing pharmaceutical companies to market directly to patients. Companies aim to define and promote both the drugs and the diseases they treat through marketing strategies like symptom checklists. Checklists influence patient preferences by encouraging self-diagnosis. While few patients explicitly request advertised drugs, American patients are more likely to do so than those in countries where direct advertising is banned. The widespread use of checklists and other marketing expands industry influence over how patients understand their health.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    42 views3 pages

    Have These Symptoms Buy This Drug by Pauline Chen

    Uploaded by

    superherosaves
    Direct-to-consumer drug advertising began in 1997 when the FDA loosened regulations, allowing pharmaceutical companies to market directly to patients. Companies aim to define and promote both the drugs and the diseases they treat through marketing strategies like symptom checklists. Checklists influence patient preferences by encouraging self-diagnosis. While few patients explicitly request advertised drugs, American patients are more likely to do so than those in countries where direct advertising is banned. The widespread use of checklists and other marketing expands industry influence over how patients understand their health.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    Have These Symptoms?

    Buy This Drug


    By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.

    New York Times

    It began suddenly a little over 10 years ago. With impressive fluency, friends, family members
    and patients started asking me about random medications, the odd syncopations of those
    invented, polysyllabic pharmaceutical brand names – Viagra, Lipitor — rolling perfectly off their
    tongues.

    The questions they asked about those drugs did not reflect breaking news or the results of
    scientific studies. Rather, they were a reflection of sound bites, advertisements and the draw of
    celebrities who endorsed them, all part of carefully conceived marketing schemes.

    There’s no question that Americans like their prescription medications. We spend nearly twice as
    much per person on pharmaceuticals as patients in other developed countries do, and we account
    for nearly half of all sales worldwide. But in 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration
    loosened its regulations and the United States became one of only four countries to allow direct-
    to-consumer advertising (the others are New Zealand, Bangladesh and South Korea), we entered
    a new era in pharmaceutical consumerism.

    Players in the drug industry began aiming their advertisements at patients, and their goal was to
    define in the minds of patients not only the beneficial effects of the drugs but also the diseases
    they were designed to treat.

    As Vince Parry, a well-known marketing expert, counseled his colleagues, “If you can define a
    particular condition and its associated symptoms in the minds of physicians and patients, you can
    also predicate the best treatment for that condition.”

    The phenomenon is sometimes referred to as “disease mongering,” redefining what is normal


    and abnormal in a way that widens potential markets for those who sell treatments. And, as
    detailed in a recent study in the journal Social Science & Medicine, one marketing strategy has
    accomplished more in this regard than any other by using what has come to be the very symbol
    of quality and reliability for doctors and patients everywhere: the checklist.

    Placed on Web sites, on downloadable apps and in pamphlets in doctors’ offices, these checklists
    of symptoms have become a critical part of every major pharmaceutical marketing campaign.
    What makes them so attractive is that they make it easy for patients to diagnose their own
    ailments, to take some control over their own health.

    What makes the checklists so powerful is their ability to influence patient preferences.
    The makers of Yaz, a birth control pill, for example, used a checklist to help promote the use of
    their drug as a treatment for premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a controversial diagnosis said to
    affect up to 10 percent of women. Alongside links to articles on fashion, makeup, hair and
    celebrity news, Yaz’s Web site offered a “Body Diary” checklist to help patients determine
    whether they suffer from the disorder.

    Taking its cues from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or D.S.M.,
    which mental health professionals use to diagnose disease, the checklist offered watered-down
    and potentially more inclusive descriptions. A symptom described in the D.S.M. as “persistent
    and marked anger or irritability or increased interpersonal conflicts” appeared in the Yaz
    questionnaire as “Felt angry, or irritable.” “Marked change in appetite, overeating, or specific
    food cravings” became “Had increased appetite or overate; or had cravings for specific foods.”
    The printable results that patients could then take to their doctors (the site has since been taken
    down) were on a form emblazoned with the birth control brand.

    “The whole point of tools like this one is to confine people’s experiences into these categories in
    order to make a diagnosis in line with the branded drug,” said the author of the study, Mary
    Ebeling, an assistant professor of sociology at Drexel University in Philadelphia who got
    interested in the use of checklists while doing research at a marketing firm. “I became really
    intrigued when I saw a group of marketers sitting around a table in Midtown Manhattan and
    coming up with symptoms.”

    Some symptom checklists are clearly branded, so patients and clinicians can easily discern the
    pharmaceutical interests involved. But many are less obvious or are used as part of advocacy
    groups’ materials or awareness events. For example, National Depression Screening Day, held
    annually at college campuses, military sites and community centers across the country, uses a
    symptom checklist called the Patient Health Questionnaire, or PHQ-9. The nine questions are
    based on a well-known anxiety screening tool, but its copyright is held by Pfizer, maker of the
    antidepressant Zoloft.

    It’s difficult to ascertain whether efforts aimed directly at consumers ultimately translate into real
    sales. A recent marketing study found that fewer than 3 percent of patients mentioned a marketed
    drug by name and less than 1 percent asked for a prescription. However, a separate study
    comparing patients in Canada, where direct-to-consumer marketing is illegal, with those in the
    United States found that American patients were more than twice as likely to request advertised
    medications.

    But sales may not be the only measure of success for these campaigns. “The whole point of this
    marketing and branding is that the name ends up in the minds of the consumers,” Dr. Ebeling
    said.

    While the Obama administration is looking to force pharmaceutical companies to disclose any
    payments to doctors that might influence their treatment decision, marketing efforts directed at
    patients are likely to continue to grow. And with those efforts comes a widening, not shrinking,
    circle of interests that can influence their care.
    “There are pharmaceutical marketers, medical device makers, health insurers and whoever is
    involved in the health industry sitting in the exam room, not just the doctor and patient,” Dr.
    Ebeling said.

    She added, “I find that disturbing, because it’s our health and the quality of our lives that are at
    stake.”

    You might also like