Both Sides Want Prescription Ads Revamped Companies Say Rules Too Tough; Too Confusing, Say Consumer Groups

Ever try to learn about a prescription drug from a magazine ad? No problem, as long as you have a high-powered magnifying glass, a thick medical encyclopedia and plenty of patience.

In the name of consumer protection, federal regulations say every ad that promotes a prescription drug’s benefits must also detail its risks, especially side effects and dangerous interactions with other drugs.

Drug companies and advertising agencies complain the rules are so tough, each ad must include a full page of fine print so jammed with medical jargon that it is useless to the average patient.

TV commercials can’t accommodate the fine print, so they aren’t allowed to say anything about the drug beyond its name, leaving some viewers baffled.

“You have this massive disclosure requirement that makes advertising of these products very much more expensive - and in some ways impossible - while not protecting the public in ways that make sense,” said Dan Jaffe of the Association of National Advertisers.

Drug executives and advertisers want the Food and Drug Administration to loosen the regulations.

Consumer groups and doctors don’t like the rules either, but for a different reason. They contend the FDA allows companies to hype the benefits of drugs in the advertising’s main body of text and leave most of the risks to the fine print - which nobody reads.

This, they say, can endanger lives, or at least prompt doctors to prescribe more expensive medicines when cheaper ones will do.

Industry critics want the FDA to require that the main body of text contain more information about risks, along with alternative drugs and other non-drug treatments.

The FDA has been working on reforms for more than a year, but has yet to propose a plan acceptable to all concerned.

Meanwhile, the amount of prescription drug advertising to the public is growing rapidly. Last year alone, direct-to-consumer ads doubled to more than $500 million, outstripping traditional ads in medical journals for the first time, said Competitive Media Reports, an industry researcher.

As a result, some patients are demanding medicines they really shouldn’t have, said American Medical Association vice chairman Dr. Thomas Reardon, a family doctor in Portland.

Doctors who refuse risk losing the patient. “The patient says ‘You don’t meet my needs. You don’t do what I want you to do,”’ he said.

On the contrary, industry executives argue, drug advertising educates patients and doctors about new treatments they may not be aware of.

Industry representatives contend that the FDA’s required advertising disclosure statement - ironically called a brief summary - needlessly describes nearly every side effect, even ones that almost never occur.

“Is that useful to the patient? No, it’s counterproductive because they may throw the drug in the trash and say ‘I don’t want to use that stuff,”’ said John Siegfried of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Drug makers point out that nearly all prescription drug advertising is submitted to the FDA for approval before the public ever sees it.