[e-drug] Doctors prescribing heavily influenced by DTCA (2)

["Parrish, Richard" <RParrish@su.edu>]

E-DRUG: Doctors prescribing heavily influenced by DTCA (2)
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Thanks for sending announcement of this study out to the list. While it may add fuel to the fire to ban DTCA in the US, I believe that patient requests should have an effect on physician (and all health care professional) behaviors regarding their care. Placing this study in the context of the patient-provider relationship, it should be remembered that most visits with a prescriber end with the generation of a prescription of some kind. Moreover, 
we have known for many years that patients demand and receive antibiotic prescriptions when they do not need them (i.e. when there is no physiopathological evidence for need). Other situations have been reported as well.

My opinion is that DTCA is an ethically marginal, short-run strategy for announcing product or service availability for the purpose of increasing sales. It is ethically marginal not because it increases sales (which it does), but because the advertised products are not available for direct purchase. An ethically consistent policy on advertising would be: "Products advertised directly to the public should be available for direct procurement by the public."

My two cents worth.

Richard H. Parrish II, PhD, RPh
Assistant Professor, Pharmacy Practice
The Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy
Shenandoah University
1775 North Sector Court
Winchester, VA  22601 USA
tel: +1 540 678-4392
email: rparrish@su.edu