Doc, I need Cialis

We've all been there. Hanging out with your parents or grandparents when an advertisement for Viagra or Cialis comes on the television. Someone scrambles for the remote while your grandpa makes a crude joke and your grandmother turns bright red. But, these advertisements are doing more than making you want to crawl under the rug, they are changing the way the healthcare system works.

While a slight deviation from the public health campaigns described up to this point in this blog, the direct to consumer (DTC) marketing of a product that consumers can't buy directly brings up a few interesting points. And, it seems to be adding to the pharmaceutical companies bottom line.

In fact, every $1 the pharmaceutical industry spent on DTC advertising in that year yielded an additional $4.20 in drug sales. DTC advertising was responsible for 12% of the increase in prescription drugs sales, or an additional $2.6 billion, in 2000, according to the summary findings of a study by Harvard and MIT researchers.

Direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs is creating a demand market for a traditionally supply driven market. Consumers are demanding products now while they used to take whatever was supplied to them.

A consumer reports health blog reports, "In a 2006 survey by our National Survey Research Center, 78 percent of doctors said that patients asked them at least occasionally to prescribe drugs they had seen advertised on television, and 67 percent said they sometimes did so."

I'll use the same example the above linked article does. The first time I saw the Restless Leg Syndrome commercial, I was convinced that because I sometimes was fidgety, I was an unlucky sufferer of RLS. That night when I tried to go to bed, my legs were tingly. I knew it! RLS! The power of suggestion is, well, powerful. By advertising all the things that can go wrong with you (and a drug to fix them) consumers can now diagnose themselves, ask for the corresponding drug, and be on their way.

Creating brand-name demand for a drug that has potentially serious side effects and may not be right for each patient is a dangerous game to play. Patient demand for specific products and doctor supply of those products creates a health care system where the best brand wins, not the best treatment.

As far as advertising prescription drugs goes, how far is too far? Or are prescription drugs just the new brand battleground? We'll see.

Again, for levity: