TV ad rules loosened for prescription drugs

BRIGID SCHULTE
WASHINGTON BUREAU

You've seen the TV ads, mystifying and strange, of a wind surfer gliding
over fields of wheat. A serene mountain climber. A giant nose.

But, by law, the ads don't tell you just what they're advertising. Sporting
equipment? A new car? Actually, they're all ads for prescription drugs.
Antihistamines, highbloodpressure medicine and, in the case of the
swimsuits, toenail fungus medication.

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration effectively put an end to the
confusion by easing TV advertising restrictions on drug companies. Prepare
for an onslaught: The move is expected to open the floodgates of TV drug
advertising.

Drug companies and ad agencies are expected to more than double the amount
they spend on advertising next year to $1 billion. They insist that the new
rules will mean not only more, but clearer ads and better information for
consumers.

"Until this morning, a pharmaceutical company couldn't use both the name of
the drug and tell, straightforwardly, what the drug is for," said John
Kamp, Washington attorney for the American Association of Advertising
Agencies, which has been lobbying for the change for years. "Under today's
ruling, people won't have to scratch their heads and wonder what the ad is
for."

Victoria Murphy, a spokeswoman for Eli Lilly & Co., said that as a result
of Friday's ruling, the company is considering a TV campaign for Prozac,
the popular antidepressant.

"TV advertising is potentially beneficial, particularly in disease

categories that are pervasive and undertreated," Murphy said. "Two out of
three people with depression, a highly common and highly treatable disease,
do not receive adequate treatment."

Advertising, she said, is one way to get depressed people, or their friends
or family, to recognize symptoms, get to a doctor and get treated.

But some consumer groups say the FDA's ruling is potentially dangerous.
They say the coming barrage of drug ads could lead to patients asking for
drugs they don't need, or that cost more, and to physicians'
overprescribing drugs. They worry that the ads may gloss over the risks of
drugs.

"The major purpose of advertising is to sell drugs, it's not to educate
people about drugs," said Larry Sasich, a researcher at Ralph Nader's
Health Research Group in Washington.

"With the new FDA rules," Sasich said, "I see patients who have been misled
going to see physicians who have been similarly misled by drug advertising,
getting drugs that they may or may not need, and wind up potentially harmed
either economically or personally."

In fact, information about possible harmful side effects was the reason why
the 30yearold FDA

rules were so stiff and the drug ads so oblique. Under the old rules, drug
companies could advertise "direct to consumers" the name of the drug and
what condition it was meant to remedy, but only if it listed lots of
technical data about risks, clinical studies and potential side effects.

In print ads run in newspapers and magazines, all that mindnumbing
information is squashed into tiny fine print at the bottom of the ad, and
usually ignored by readers. But on television, drug companies complained
there was no way to put all that data on the air in a 30second spot. To
get around it, drug companies ran "reminder" ads, that showed either a drug
name, or the condition it remedied, but not both.

Friday's ruling lifts the requirement that companies run tediously
specialized data on air. Instead, drug companies will be required to
broadcast a drug's major side effects and risks, in a way that is easy for
viewers to understand, and direct consumers to a tollfree telephone
number, Internet Web site or readily available brochures for more information.