AdAge.com reported a while back that drugmaker AstraZeneca wants to limit the number of risks mentioned in a TV drug ad. They say consumers are overloaded and overwhelmed by multiple warnings. An AstraZeneca study supposedly found that listing three risks is optimal; more than five is too many.
Maybe AstraZeneca should do another study of how overloaded and overwhelmed American consumers are by the onslaught of drug ads. We see prime-time TV ads for three impotence drugs and for what seems like 18 new sleeping pills. What's optimal in that picture? What's overload?
Meantime, this proposal comes, according to AdAge.com, when "The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly asked for more risk information, and in remarks earlier this year the director of its drug marketing, advertising and communications division, Thomas Abrams, noted that 82% of pharmaceutical company violations in the past year were related to inadequate presentations of risk information."
Of course AstraZeneca makes the cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor. And AstraZeneca is in an intense battle with other drugmakers for market share in this sector, fighting to get many more Americans taking their drug. Because of the potential benefits. And forget those nagging side effect warnings (e.g.: rhabdomyolysis, a rare but serious side effect of all statins, pharyngitis, headache, diarrhea, dyspepsia, nausea, myalgia, asthenia, back pain, flu syndrome, urinary tract infection, rhinitis, sinusitis.....oops, I violated the optimal 3-side effect limit!)
Posted by schwitz at August 9, 2006 07:46 AM | TrackBack'Drugmaker wants LESS risk information in drug ads' - of course they do!
Posted by: Buy Links at August 10, 2006 01:07 AM