Writing Project 4: Argument Paper essay

Today, advertising plays an important part in the life of the modern society influencing consumer behavior and determining choices made by consumers. In this respect, the use of advertising for promotion of medicaments raises a number of ethical and legal issues. In fact, advertising of medicaments may threaten to the life and health of patients if patients follow advertising without consultations with health care professionals. Even though advertising mainly refers to sales of over-the-counter medicaments, but advertising may also be directed to physicians as well as other consumers that may influence decisions taken by physicians, when they make prescriptions. At the same time, the existing regulations and policies conducted by the FDA are not strict enough to provide the full control over advertising of medicaments that leads to the emergence of numerous and threats consumers expose themselves to under the impact of advertising medicaments. In such a situation, the only solution of this problem and the effective one is the ban of advertising of medicaments to provide health care professionals with the possibility to make proper choices and make the pharmaceutical industry quality-oriented, instead of profit-oriented, which is the case, when advertising allows companies to promote their products and sell them successfully, even though the quality of medicaments is far from perfect, or there are effective alternatives, which do not have extensive advertising and promotion.

In actuality, the modern society faces the problem of medicalization and this problem aggravates as medicaments and their advertising become more and more accessible to the mass audience, whereas pharmaceutical companies invest more in advertising their products. The essence of medicalization became the definitional issue: defining a problem in medical terms, usually as an illness or disorder or using a medical intervention to treat it (Conrad, 2005). However, under the impact of advertising the shift in medicalization can be traced for patients as well as health care professionals become consumers, who are vulnerable to the impact of advertising and making choices in favor of advertised products.

At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that advertising creates demand on medicaments. The constant development of new technologies, treatments, and drugs sparks consumer interest in obtaining access to these new medical goods and services, and advertising can further increase consumer demand (Conrad & Leiter, 2004). In such a way, the ongoing progress makes medicaments subjects to trade that makes them mere commodities not only for pharmaceutical companies but also consumers because advertising leads them to the idea that medicaments are essential for them and, as any advertising aims at its specific target audience depending on the characteristics of the product, the products become more and more accessible to the target customer group as consumers are eager to buy them.

The emergence of advertising changed the market and consumer behavior consistently changing the attitude of people to medication and exposing them to the risk of the uncontrollable drug consumption. The use of advertising, the development of specific medical markets, and the standardization of medical services into product lines have contributed to an increased commodification of medical goods and services (Conrad & Leiter, 2004). In such a situation, the industry’s gradual shift in focus from “physician-directed” to “consumer-directed” advertisements poses a threat to the public health because it may have the effect of misleading consumers by understating a drug’s adverse reactions and overstating the benefits (Holtz, 1998).

At the same time, a loosened regulatory environment has given pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies more freedom in advertising their wares, both to physicians and consumers (Conrad & Leiter, 2004). Obviously, the modern regulatory policies are less strict than they used to be a decade ago. For instance, the FDA regulations have remained unresponsive to this change in advertising focus. In a draft guidance issued by the FDA, the agency has actually made advertising of prescription drugs easier by making disclosure requirements of adverse drug reactions less stringent for broadcast advertisements. The current regulatory system in place by the FDA is inadequate to deal with current issues surrounding consumer-directed advertising (Holtz, 1998).  Hence, the risk of errors and misuse of drugs by consumers under the impact of advertising emerges.

At the same time, it is possible to trace another disturbing trend reveal the negative impact of medicaments advertising on the consumer behavior and the attention pharmaceutical companies pay to advertising. The annual spending on direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs tripled between 1996 and 2000; it is only 15 percent of all marketing, but by far the fastest rising segment. Much of this increase has been in television advertising after the Federal Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997 made it easier to advertise drugs to the general public (Conrad & Leiter, 2004). Consumers’ quest for and access to information has been accompanied by an increase in the patient’s role in his or her health care treatment (Holtz, 1998).   In such a situation, patients, being consumers, become vulnerable to the impact of advertising and, as they increase their role in their treatment, patients can use drugs without consultations with health care professionals. In such a situation, the risk of negative effects of medication on the health of patients increases substantially.

The development of modern medicine has opened larger opportunities for the medication treatment, which can help people to recover from diseases and illnesses more effectively than the use of conventional or alternative means of treatment (Taylor, Manzo, & Sinnett, 2002). However, nowadays the question concerning the use of drugs arises since the problem of the uncontrollable use of drugs is threatening to the health of people. In such a situation health care professionals and policy makers face a dilemma whether to allow prescribed drugs only and ban OTC drugs, or let people buy drugs over-the-counter as they can do now.

Basically, the essence of the problem of the choice in favor of prescription or OTC drugs is dubious. On the one hand, prescribed drugs guarantee patients’ the effectiveness and safety of drugs prescribed by their physicians (Taylor, Manzo, & Sinnett, 2002). At any rate, health care professionals prescribing drugs are responsible for their use and effects on patients’ health. Moreover, they have professional knowledge and can prescribe drugs that will help in each particular case.

On the other hand, the use of prescribed drugs only implies that patients always need to call a doctor to get the prescription. In such a context, the use of prescribed drug seems to be senseless since drugs that do not have any serious side effects and are widely used in the medicine and are currently recommended to use even without specific prescriptions, will need doctors’ authorization. In fact, even vitamins may be viewed as drugs that need prescription. Obviously, this makes the ban of OTC drugs irrational (Shane, 2002). Thus, it is obvious that the use of drugs should be thoroughly controlled, but it is unnecessary to totally ban OTC drugs, instead, it is necessary to improve the regulation and control over the use of OTC drugs.

Obviously, the advertising of medicaments raises a number of problems stimulating the loosing regulatory policies from the part of the FDA and other regulatory bodies and the growing impact of advertising on consumer behavior. As a result, advertising of medicaments become more and more consumer-oriented, instead of physician-oriented. In such a situation, the development of new effective medicaments is closely intertwined with advertising. However, in such a context, the safety of medicaments should become the primary concern of health care professionals and the FDA because advertising leads to the uncontrollable drug consumption by patients, who become mere consumers and use advertising information instead of consultations with physicians to take drugs.

Furthermore, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that the development of drug advertising raises a number of problems. In this regard, it should be said that the advertising of medicaments can be misleading and, if medicaments are available to patients, being over-the-counter drug, patients may start consuming these drugs without specific prescriptions of health care professionals and any control from the part of health care professionals. As a result, they expose their health to the threat caused by the misuse of drugs by patients under the impact of health care professionals. In fact, advertising contributes to the attraction of the attention of the audience to specific drugs but customers are not aware of the quality of drugs and their effects on patients. For instance, overconsumption of some drugs may lead to negative effects on the health of patients but, being influenced by advertising, patients can consumer medicaments excessively. Therefore, strict regulations of advertising of medicaments are essential for the protection of health of patients.

Thus, taking into consideration all above mentioned, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that advertising of medicaments is a highly controversial issue because it may have a considerable impact on the audience. However, the impact of advertising of medicaments may be negative because they stimulate the consumption of drugs because patients may start consuming drugs excessively and provoke negative side-effects. As a result, patients’ health may be under a threat. Consequently, the strict regulation of advertising of medicaments is essential for the prevention of negative effects of the consumption of drugs by patients. In this regard, the role of the FDA is particularly important because it is such regulatory bodies as the FDA regulate the relationship within the drug production and advertising. In such a situation, the FDA should focus on the strict regulation of policies related to advertising of medicaments. At the same time, the legislation concerning medicaments and their advertising also needs substantial enhancement to grant the FDA and other regulatory bodies with opportunities to regulate advertising of medicaments. At the same time, the FDA should maintain the reliability of advertisers to ensure that advertising of medicaments is absolutely safe for health of patients and will not have any negative effects on patients. however, such regulation is hardly possible because there is always risk that patients will misinterpret the content of advertising and they will not follow recommendations in advertising strictly. Therefore, advertising of medicaments may have negative impact on patients’ health that means that advertising of medicaments should be totally banned and health care professionals should prescribe medicaments to patients or, at least, patients should consult their physicians before taking any medicaments.