The European Parliament's Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has defeated a proposal to relax the European Union's ban on advertising prescription drugs to the public, and its decision has since been ratified by the parliament itself.
The original proposal took the form of a 5-year “pilot project” that allowed companies to advertise prescription drugs to the public for 3 health conditions: HIV/AIDS, diabetes and asthma. It came from Enterprise Directorate- General, which is charged with fostering competitiveness within the European Union. It had argued that direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) creates better-informed consumers, but faced opposition from health groups.
Margaret Ewen, codirector of Health Action International Europe, agreed that Europeans need access to quality drug information but “this proposal was not the way to provide it.” She cheered rejection of the proposal: “The committee understood that this proposal is really about allowing companies to advertise their products to a whole new audience.”
Charles Medawar, director of the UK consumer group Social Audit, called the decision an “important test case” and said the committee has clearly defined the limits of “market-driven medicine.”
DTCA of prescription drugs has proved controversial in both Europe (CMAJ 2002;166[7]:946) and North America, where the CMA has announced its opposition (CMAJ 2002; 167 [10]:1153).
In the US, retail drug spending has nearly doubled since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relaxed its rules for broadcast advertising in 1997. A relatively small number of heavily advertised drugs was responsible for most of the increase (www.nihcm.org/spending2001 .pdf). The FDA has also issued numerous warnings for misleading marketing practices to some of the major drug manufacturers.
Although DTCA remains illegal, Europeans are still exposed to ads Canadians are also seeing more frequently — disease-awareness campaigns that encourage you to “see your doctor” without pinpointing a specific drug.
Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan is on record supporting the current Canadian ban on DTCA. — Alan Cassels, Victoria