Volume 68 Number 3 May 2001	back to contents

Direct-to-Consumer Drug Marketing: Public Service or Disservice?	197-202
Jeffrey T. Berger, M.D., Pieter Kark, M.D., Fred Rosner, M.D., Samuel Packer, M.D., and Allen J. Bennett, M.D.
Address correspondence and requests for reprints to Jeffrey T. Berger, M.D., 222 Station Plaza North, Suite 518, Mineola, New York Pharmaceutical industry spending on direct-to-consumer advertising has been increasing rapidly. While the primary goal of direct-to-consumer advertising is to sell drugs, supposed secondary goals include patient education and improved health. However, these benefits of direct-to-consumer advertising are unproved. Moreover, such advertising may create unnecessary tension between the patient and the patient's physician and insurer, and may divert physicians' efforts away from important patient concerns, and toward marketing-generated discussions. On the other hand, direct-to-consumer advertising may lead to patient-doctor encounters that would not have occurred otherwise. Direct-to-consumer advertising should be modified to unambiguously benefit the health-care interests of consumers and patients. KEY WORDS Prescription drugs, pharmaceutical industry, marketing, advertising.

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