Aggressive Drug Marketing and Your Health

An article published in the December 2, 2008 edition of the British Medical Journal by David Kao, a fellow in cardio-vascular medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center entitled, “What can we learn from drug marketing efficiency?” found that: “quicker drug approvals and sophisticated marketing campaigns may be putting more patients at risk of dangerous side effects but the same techniques might be put to use to protect them.”

Kao said the 1992 Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which authorizes fees from companies to beef up the FDA and speed drug approvals, cut the time needed to review a new drug by half from 1986 to 2002. The revenue from the fees collected accounts for 43% of the FDA budget for drug oversight. There’s no way this process could be helping drug safety. Kao also stated, “the closer to deadline that a new drug is approved, the more likely it is to later need strong safety warnings or to be withdrawn.”

An example Kao cites is a relatively new drug by Merck for diabetes. "Once approved, the drug maker began a multifaceted marketing campaign…the product web site was functional within 90 minutes of approval, and within 8 days, Merck had reached 70% of target doctors and made first deliveries to pharmacies. Within 14 days, discussions were completed with managed care organizations covering 73% of the insured U.S. population."
Kao said he was not implying that the drug will endanger any patients.