Are you concerned about the costs of medications?

Do you suffer from “sticker-shock” when you go to the pharmacy?

Are you seeing more and more advertisements for medications?

Have you wondered why?

Have you wondered how it might affect our health care economy long term?

Advertising for medications is nothing new. This has been done in medical journals and medical newspapers for decades. This is one of the ways that drug companies try to get physicians to use their medications. However, direct-to-consumer is still a fairly new item in the United States.

Pharmaceutical companies are marketing medications to the masses by using television, radio, and print advertisements. Some of the medications you'll see advertised include Prevachol, Lipitor, Prozac, Singulair, Allegra, Claritin, Zyrtec, Prilosec, Viagra, Nexxium, Zoloft, Zocor, Lipitor, and many, many more.

Do you wonder why the makers of Prilosec keep advertising their new drug Nexxium? The drugs are related (names omeprazole and esomeprazole), but their patent is going to end on Prilosec (omeprazole) soon and there will be a generic form available. That means the maker of Prilosec loses money! Why not get patients switched to the new form of the medication which won’t have a generic form?!?

(By the way, expect many of the other drug companies to do similar strategies in the near future. For example, the makers of Claritin are going to lose their patent soon. Hmmmm, I wonder if there will be a newer version of Claritin?)

If you’ve read a lot of my epinions, this one may look familiar. I wrote about this subject in the past, but I deleted that epinion and decided to start fresh, with new information.

There was a letter to the editor in the recent edition of FP Report, a newspaper published monthly by the American Academy of Family Physicians. It addressed the issue of direct-to-consumer. You might find it interesting. It is available online at:

http://www.aafp.org/fpr/20010700/12.html

I am appalled by the number of medication advertisements on TV, in the newspaper, and even in one of my favorite magazines, Newsweek. The cost of these advertisements (which must be in the billions of dollars) is passed along to the consumer in higher priced medications.

Drug companies hope to influence how physicians prescribe, either by affecting the physicians themselves or encouraging consumers to ask for medications by name when they go to the doctor. I’m not saying that these medications are not useful, but they are driving up health care costs with their advertisements.

So what can people do?

Talk to your health care providers. Ask questions about the medications that you see advertised. Ask if they are best for your medical problems, or if there are cheaper (and sometimes more effective) alternatives. If the medications doing the advertising don’t get used, maybe it will decrease the amount of advertising in the media.

Maybe some of the advertised medications are what you need, but there is only one way to find out. Ask your doctor!


Legal Disclaimer: Although I am a physician, this is not intended to be taken as medical advice. It is my epinion and is meant to be educational. If you have questions about medications please see your medical professional (physician, nurse practitioner, or physician's assistant).

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