The following is direct quote from the June 2008 issue of Consumer Reports:
Safer medications. While Consumers Union lobbies in this country for better disclosure of drug-trial results and a toll-free number on ever TV drug ad, Consumers International is lobbying in Europe, where direct-to-consumer drug ads are banned, to keep them off the air. (Only the U.S. and New Zealand allow prescription drugs to be peddled to consumers.) CI's head of campaigns, Justin MacMullan, noted this year that "prescription drugs are not washing powders and should not be sold as such."
In Central America, consumer groups are fighting an equally tough battle. A new study of medications in five countries in the region found critical information-active ingredients, side effects, and indications and contraindications for use - missing from the labels.
Pakistan's key consumer advocacy group has teamed with physicians to expose irresponsible marketing with offers of cars, refrigerators, and even domestic animals.
My question: Do you think the heads of the drug companies promoting these drugs recommend their families take them?
Your Q seems to assume that all commercially promoted drugs are bad drugs and that the makers of these drugs know that in advance. If that's true, then I would guess that they don't recommend them to family. I don't know if your assumption is true, and in the case that it isn't, then I would think that yeah, if their families would benfit by them, they would recommend they take them.
The first rule of life,"don't assume anything!" Actually posed the question to get the opinions of other people. Have a great day. *Gentle Hugs * When I worked at a big pharma, most people from senior/executive management on down took our medications whenever there was the option to do so - hypertension, diabetes, antibiotic therapy, even vitamins and supplements. Watching Wolf, if that seemed rude or hostile, i didn't mean it to be. Sorry if I offended you.RA is bad today , hard to type, so no caps. i'm very opposed to direct to consumer advertising. reason one, if we are so concerned about controlling health care costs, why not start here. only the us and new zealand allow this practice. billions are spent on these commercials and its not like you can go into a store and buy them, you have to see a doctor for a script. reason two, these ads are misleading, they depict happy, able bodied people doing all kinds of active, wonderful things and rapidly fire off the side effects at the end of the commercial. lately we've heard several drug companies witheld or misrepresented info from clincial studies about side effects (vioxx and heart condition) and effectiveness (vytorin, no better than cheaper generic drug). should a new drug be heavily marketed when it just comes out and hasn't been used by a large population (i.e. vioxx, millions were spent, was pulled off market in 4 or so years after over 100,000 heart related cases) dtca sets up drug companies for conflict of interest, too much emphasis is placed on advertising to the public, money that could go to research and development. the ceos of the drug companies are some of the highest paid ever, in the world, million dollar salaries and million dollars in stock, there responsibility is to the shareholders. they have yrs of patent protection, and when those patents expire they lately have creatted "me too"" drugs, a drug going off patent with a new ingredient, which is marketed and more expesnive than generic drug (vytorin case) folks say drug companies need to do all this advertising to recoup money they've spent on r and d, but they get big tax breaks for r and d, use research for national institute of health and public universities studies. there are several drug companies in switzerland (roche) dtca is prevented there, the gov negotiates for lower drug prices, yet these companies are still in business, still doing r and d. health care costs are expected to double in 10 years, many have a hard time paying for their meds, why not do away w/dcta to save money, we're paying for these ads.