Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by refurb 3317 days ago
There is no indication that direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs improves health outcomes.

Do you have an citations to back that up? Because I do. And it's from the FDA.[1] I'll spare copying it all down and just leave these takeaways:

- FDA research, of patients who visited their doctors because of an ad they saw, and who asked about that prescription drug by brand name, 87 percent actually had the condition the drug treats. And in 6 percent of those DTC-generated visits, a previously undiagnosed condition was discovered.

- Only 7 percent of doctors said they felt "very pressured to prescribe" a particular advertised drug.

- According to the FDA study, a majority of doctors feel that DTC advertising increases patient awareness and involvement, improves compliance, and enhances the overall doctor-patient relationship.

[1]https://www.fda.gov/drugs/resourcesforyou/consumers/ucm14356...
2 comments
mjevans 3317 days ago
All that this tells me is that the current system for diagnosing patients is REALLY broken. Where's something like IBM Watson's doctor module to shortlist treatments for humans to undertake and evaluate?
link
epmaybe 3316 days ago
It seems weird then, that the American medical association lobbies against DTC advertising.
link
upvotinglurker 3316 days ago
The subset of doctors who expend probably significant time/effort getting on the governing board (or whatever it may be called) of the AMA, maybe have different opinions than doctors in general? (I've found this sometimes to be true of professional organizations/unions)
link
epmaybe 3316 days ago
True, this is indeed possible. However, note that the FDA survey cited only asked 500 physicians. The survey was also done in 2004, which I believe is prior to the cracking down on gift giving and pharmaceutical companies giving kickbacks to physicians. If I remember correctly, DTC advertising spiked after this happened.

Here's some more recent data (also not super scientific, but probably a decent representation of most physician attitudes today): http://www.mmm-online.com/campaigns/what-doctors-have-to-say...

link