The assault on our senses from drug ads will now be a bit greater with new ads pushing heart-shocking defibrillator devices.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:
"Medical technology giant Medtronic Inc. will launch a $100 million marketing campaign today to raise awareness about the dangers of sudden cardiac arrest -- and the role of heart defibrillators in saving lives.
Some of the advertising in newspapers and on TV will be aimed at consumers, in addition to doctors. That's common practice in the drug industry but rare for medical device companies.
That could be changing as aging baby boomers take a more active role in their health care. Consumer advertising of medical devices reached the $50 million mark in 2005, an increase from "almost nothing" in 1996, according to a report by Cutting Edge Information, a Raleigh, N.C., market research firm."
But the Star Tribune takes the bait when it writes, "Part of the problem is that patients who need the devices aren't necessarily getting them -- Medtronic estimates roughly 850,000 Americans are in this category. Put another way, less than 35 percent of patients who need an ICD have one -- yet the therapy is effective 98 percent of the time, the company said."
Who says who needs the devices? That should be a matter between patients and their doctors. Any such campaign has one goal: to increase the market share. You can wrap it in all the euphemism about "educating patients" that you wish. But I'm not going to walk into my doctor and say, "Gee, doc, I think I need a Medtronic defibrillator!"
Posted by schwitz at January 16, 2007 08:08 AM | TrackBack