Drug maker Pfizer is responsible for saving, let's
say, millions of lives। Many of their drugs do really nice things
for
people, like help them go to the bathroom, keep complicated breast
cancer survivors chugging along, and let old people and party boys get
it on. But like any pill pusher, Pfizer cares more about its bottom
line than patient health, which is why they're such an easy case study
for Ways The Pharmaceutical Industry Misleads The Public.
The
two big examples making the most-emailed rounds arrive by way of the
Wall Street Journal, which likely means Big Pharma isn't depositing the
proper toll in Rupert Murdoch's advertising coffers.
Though
certainly not the only company guilty of the practice, Pfizer gets
fingered for exploiting a loophole in how the Food and Drug
Administration regulates pill advertising। When pushing color-coded
candy on America, drug makers must list the known serious side effects
that can result in patients taking their drug. (In recent years, the
FDA appears to have made them slow down the delivery of their dialogue,
which means no more fast-talking their way through "may cause heart
attacks or strokes" and "do not take if you're pregnant or trying to
get pregnant.") But rather than spend 30 of their 60 seconds — and,
thus, half their ad budget — telling television audiences about how
their drug can be bad for you, Pfizer instead runs an ad talking about
whatever condition it happens to have a drug for. Let's take smoking,
for example. Pfizer makes the quit-smoking drug Chantix, which has been
linked to everything from drowsiness to suicidal tendencies. This is
not the sort of thing Pfizer might want to tell you about on the TV, so
it put together a veritable PSA about how to quit smoking. Visit the
website mentioned in the ad and, look at that, there's some information
about Chantix — with the fine print more easily subdued and less
noticeable. Brilliant! Also, some say: deceitful! (The website is
mytimetoquit.com, but we're opting not to link to it.) Last year,
Pfizer sold $883 million worth of Chantix, so you can imagine the
fiscal logic here.
The other shady
television advertising practice that Pfizer engages in, or used to, is
the use of misleading statements delivered by medical professionals।
Except to push heart drug and best-selling prescription medication
Lipitor, the doctor Pfizer used — Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the
artificial heart — wasn't even a practicing physician. This led to
unwanted attention from Congress and the medical community, who saw
Pfizer trying to trick people into thinking a M.D. who knows something
about the heart was actively prescribing the drug he was recommending
you take. How to get around it? By enlisting an Average Joe to make the
pitch. New Pfizer ads for Lipitor look the same, but the guy shilling
for the drug is different; he's John Erlendson, a California talent
agent who wasn't taking Lipitor when he had a heart attack — and boy
does he wish he had! Though it faces increasing competition from
generic heart drugs, Pfizer sold $12.7 billion worth of Lipitor last
year.
Can we really blame Pfizer for its
advertising practices? Sure, but that'd be like blaming capitalism for
all the world's woes. The FDA sets the rules for drug advertising, and
it should be expected that a company with a market cap of nearly $130
billion is going to do everything in its power to get around the rules
if it means buffering the bottom line. So how to keep companies like
Pfizer honest? Stop crossing our fingers thinking they'll do it on
their own — and start valuing patient health more than shareholder
interests by passing stricter advertising rules.