The revelation that Madison has the fourth-highest physician prices of all U.S. metropolitan areas is a disheartening blow to those who believe quality health care is a right for all, not a privilege of the wealthy. Health care has been pushed to the back burner in the face of war, an energy crisis and hurricane devastation, but the Government Accountability Office report should be a jarring realization to all levels of government that priorities need to expand.
Health care costs go far beyond a simple visit to the physician, especially considering the exorbitant prices Americans pay for prescription drugs. Prices have skyrocketed almost as fast as Direct-To-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) produced by pharmaceutical companies. Sure, the influx of Levitra commercials have taught us that \erections lasting longer than four hours"" require immediate medical attention, but are they really informing consumers on how to live healthier lives or does their nature as advertisements, ultimately meant to sell a product, worsen public health?
There is no doubt direct-to-consumer advertising works. It is estimated that a 10 percent increase in DTCA for a particular class of drugs leads to a 1 percent increase in sales for that class. However, the cost we pay for the pharmacutical companies to reap a 1 percent increase in profit is enormous. Americans are buying drugs they do not need and paying more for them.
We buy more because advertising is a powerful tool. Everyone thinks they are a little smarter than the next person, more immune to advertising, but in reality we all fall prey to it. If we did not, billions would not be spent each year on advertising. Matthew Hollon wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association that ""relying on emotional appeals, most advertisements provide a minimal amount of health information, describe the benefits in vague, qualitative terms, and rarely offer evidence to support claims."" A study done by Kimberly Kaphingst and William DeJong, published in Health Affairs, concluded that ""consumers would have a difficult time learning risk information from DTC television ads."" Overall, they are vague at best, misleading and deceptive at worst.
After repeated viewings of an advertisement, patients take the vague ""knowledge"" they have obtained to their physician, who must then convince them, without the smooth language and beautiful scenery of DTCA, that they do not need the treatment or should consider a much less expensive generic drug or over-the-counter medicine. Approximately 80 percent of physicians think DTCA encourages patients to get treatments they do not require. Even more alarming is that only 10 percent of physicians consider DTCA a ""positive trend.""
Not only are Americans buying more, they are also paying more. A generic drug is exactly the same as its brand name counterpart in dosage, use, side effects, strength, etc., but much less expensive. Brand name drugs cost more because the manufacturer has put extensive money into research for developing the drug.
For this reason, brand name drugs deserve the exclusive right to sell a drug as long as their original patent is in effect. Without this initial monopoly, innovation for new drugs would be stifled, and patients would suffer from a slower pace of research. Nonetheless, once the patent expires and generic drugs flood into the market, consumers could immediately save millions by purchasing generic drugs were it not for many patients' misconception about the inferiority, often driven by DTCA, of generic drugs.
In theory, the Food and Drug Administration is supposed to regulate DTCA. They are supposed to require advertisements to have accurate information and ""fairly"" represent the benefits and risks of the drug. In practice, their regulation has clearly gone awry.
With the FDA's lackadaisical view of the matter, Congress has an opportunity to step in. Yet DTCA has not been a hot topic in Congress lately, minus one small rumbling last summer from an unlikely character, Senate majority leader Bill Frist. A former doctor, Frist proposed a voluntary, two year moratorium on direct to consumer advertising. Pharmaceutical companies cried foul, claiming it would cost them $10 billion. Perhaps a political objective motivated the presidential aspiring Frist, but either way it would be a positive beginning to loosening the powerful hold pharmacutical companies have on the wallets of many Americans.
opinion@dailycardinal.com.
