The latest from DTC Perspectives

The Newest Disease- The Factually Challenged

My new cause is to battle a terrible new disease called factual challengitis. This disease has taken over many in and around Washington. No matter what is done to treat them they just cannot separate fact from hyperbole.

The latest victim is funny man Al Franken, who has convinced the good folks from Minnesota that he would be good Senator. He has demonstrated having the disease by his support for an end to the advertising deduction for DTC. Franken says that the taxpayers of Minnesota should not support drug marketing through their tax dollars. How dare drug marketers spend their money on marketing rather than on the public good! According to Franken these DTC dollars are being diverted from R&D. A new bill S.1763 is being introduced as part of health reform by Franken, along with Democratic Senators Whitehouse (RI), and Brown (OH,) ends the deduction for DTC. The drug companies need to realize that DTC is the target today but later it will be detailing, samples, and medical meetings.

Ok, Al let me give you a double dose of facts. First, drug companies are spending their own money to advertise. The idea of deducting advertising as a business expense is universal. Your former employer, NBC, makes its living from advertisers. Your profit-making books were advertised by your publisher and deducted as business expenses. You owe your fame and Senate seat to the advertisers that supported Saturday Night Live. Second, drugs do not promote themselves. Like it or not drug companies need to tell people their products exist. That is called marketing. Yes it is crass and distasteful to some but it is what businesses have done for several hundred years. I would venture to say that 80% of Americans owe their jobs to advertising.

A second victim of factual challengitis is NPR, who just ran a radio series on how consumers help create higher costs for health care. They blame DTC for getting consumers to ask for products. NPR needs to know that the $2.4 trillion of annual health spending is not caused by DTC. I will say the magic numbers again as in past columns. The $5 billion spent on DTC leads to about $10 billion of added sales. That is less than 1% of health spending. So stop blaming consumer demand for the problem. If NPR is right, we should provide no health information to consumers. Cancel Dr. Oz, forbid magazines that are health themed, jam the Internet signals and go back to the good old days when doctors held back information on a patient’s diagnosis. We must also immediately cancel Grey’s Anatomy, House, and the fifty other medical shows on the airwaves.

The basic premise of anti-DTC’ers is information must be withheld from citizens because if they know too much they cause cost problems by discussing advertised branded drugs. Of course Al Franken believes in free speech and everything the ACLU supports. He does, of course, make exceptions for people who have opinions he does not like. He would unconstitutionally suppress commercial speech but defend to his last breath political speech.

I guess the government needs to stop supporting commercial speech for any products it finds could damage their agenda. We are heading into dangerous territory when zealots like Franken run the asylum. Drug companies make life saving products. They are indeed premium priced when on patent. They do need to make it known they have these products for sale just like any other business. Sometimes consumers may want those newer expensive products. If doctors can recommend a better and cheaper alternative they should. Government has the right to advertise alternatives and they should run ads promoting non-drug options to treat disease. In America, that is how we do things. We do not say people cannot advertise lawful and helpful products. I am sure Mr. Franken has good intentions, but like most anti-business legislators he fails to understand how business survives and creates jobs for his good folks in Minnesota. Please write your Senator to vote against this bill.