Questionable marketing campaigns by pharmaceutical companies are a major source of worry for the Food and Drug Administration, but the agency is ill-equipped to alter the path drug makers have taken, Reuters reports.
While drug companies say they are engaged in patient education, patient advocates and some lawmakers complain that their aggressive campaigns often feature misleading claims or push medicines people might not need–while adding to skyrocketing health care costs.
In 2009, the pharmaceutical industry spent $4.8 billion on consumer advertising in the U.S., up from nearly $4.7 billion in 2008.
Drug companies increasingly use new vehicles such as blogs, niche publications, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media to promote their products, and even rely on celebrity spokesmodels.
“Companies have become more aggressive with their promotion, more creative,” Thomas Abrams, who works in the FDA’s promotional division, told Reuters.
The FDA has ramped up the number of warnings it sends to pharmaceutical companies about misleading marketing practices. After sending 21 notices to companies in 2008, and 41 notices in 2009, it had already sent 48 through August of this year.
But the FDA has yet to release guidelines for online marketing practices, making it difficult for the agency to police tactics on the Internet, and for drug companies to know what protocol to follow.
Even without the Internet, the FDA would have trouble effectively monitoring ad campaigns.
Just 57 employees review 75,000 marketing items per year, forcing the FDA to make tough choices about which ad campaigns to scrutinize.
