UK consumers reject direct advertising to patients by drug industry

The pharmaceutical industry has accused the UK Consumers' Association of “muddying the waters” over the European Commission's plans to relax controls on the information it can provide directly to patients.

The European parliament is considering a pilot project in which drug companies will be able to set up interactive websites and telephone helplines to provide information on treatments for AIDS and HIV infection, asthma, and diabetes.

But the Consumers' Association opposes the plan and last week published a survey showing that the general public was deeply suspicious of industry advertising of prescription-only medicines directly to patients.

Of the 1818 adults questioned in the survey, only one in four felt that drug companies could be trusted to provide unbiased and comprehensive information about treatments. Over 80% felt that if direct to patient advertising was allowed, companies would spend most money advertising the most profitable drugs. And over half of respondents believed that drug companies would try to convince people they had non-existent illnesses.

The association claims that evidence from the United States and New Zealand has shown that pharmaceutical advertising is likely to contain inadequate information about possible side effects and little educational content and could lead to a dramatic increase in drug costs.

“People need balanced and comparative information to make informed choices about drugs,” said a spokesperson for the Consumers' Association. “But they simply do not trust drug companies to tell the whole truth.” She added: “This survey sends a clear message to the UK government and the European parliament¾ the moves to relax the laws governing advertising of prescription drugs must be stopped immediately.”

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry claimed that the survey bore little relevance to the moves proposed under the European Commission's pilot project. “This survey shows that the public is against direct to patient advertising, and we would agree with that 100%,” said a spokesman.

“But that's not what the EC is proposing. They are talking about improving the way in which patients can obtain information on the medicines they use, and why would anybody be against that?”

He said that when announcing the project last July, the EC commissioner, Erkii Liikanen, had taken great pains to emphasise that “this is not direct to consumer advertising.” The project would help to end the anomaly whereby European patients had to rely on US websites to obtain information on their medicines, he said.