Prozac ads fuel debate
By Theresa Agovino
Associated Press
NEW YORK — It was marketing gone amok.
A few weeks ago, as many as 150 people in southern Florida received Prozac in the mail. They didn't ask for it, and there are conflicting stories whether there were prescriptions for it.
Outraged consumer advocates said the promotion was just another example of drug companies caring more about profits than patients. Privacy proponents feared patients' medical records were being mined for direct advertising campaigns without their consent.
"There is a real hysteria out there about privacy, so that Prozac situation touched a nerve," said Douglas Wood, a partner at Hall, Dickler, Kent, Goodstein & Wood, a law firm specializing in advertising. "Pharmaceutical companies are using every angle to advertise. They have just gotten more aggressive — using print, direct mail, coupons. There are many people that just don't like what has happened."
The widely criticized Prozac incident comes at a time when everyone from doctors to governors to senators has been trying to muffle messages from pharmaceutical companies in hopes of protecting patient privacy and lowering skyrocketing prescription drug costs. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that overall spending on prescription drugs last year rose 16.4 percent to $142 billion.
Some tie ballooning prescription drug costs to surging pharmaceutical promotion spending. Such expenses, including consumer ads, more than doubled from 1995-2001 to $19 billion, according to the research firm IMS Health. Last year, promotional spending jumped 21 percent.
Pharmaceutical companies are under enormous pressure lately because many of their blockbuster products' patents have expired and they don't have new medicines to replace sales lost to generic drugs. Prozac sales have virtually evaporated since it lost its patent last August. The promotion was for a weekly version of the drug with limited sales that is still under patent.
In June, Vermont passed a law requiring pharmaceutical sales reps to register every gift, fee or payment worth more than $25 to doctors and other health providers. The records will be made public. A bill based on that law was recently introduced in Congress, and another bill would end pharmaceutical companies' tax deduction for advertising.
Meanwhile, some doctors are now charging sales representatives for the opportunity to pitch their products in hopes of curtailing unnecessary visits. And in July, Florida's attorney general reached an agreement with Eckerd Corp. that will force the drugstore chain to make it easier for customers to avoid pharmaceutical promotions.
Drug companies insist promotions provide valuable information to doctors and patients. The industry says drug costs are growing because there are more medicines and people are living longer.
