BACKGROUND The current direction of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy on direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of pharmaceuticals is a subject of debate. The literature addresses the benefits and drawbacks of DTCA, but the foundations for such policies have not been investigated in detail. OBJECTIVE This paper explores the most recent FDA guidance on broadcast DTCA based on a c...

We conducted a national telephone survey about health care experiences associated with direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs. Among the 35 percent of our sample who had a physician visit during which DTCA was discussed, 25 percent received a new diagnosis, of which 43 percent were considered high priority according to authoritative sources. More than half also reported act...

We examine whether exposure to direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for antidepressant drugs affects individual use of these medications among those suffering from depression. Prior studies have almost exclusively relied on making connections between national or market-level advertising volume/expenditures and national or individual-level usage of medications. This is the first study to: estim...

O VER THE PAST QUARTER-CENTURY, PRESCRIPTION drug manufacturers in the United States have increasingly invested in direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) designed to build brand recognition and to foster patients' belief in the quality of their products. Policy-makers in Canada, where limited DTCA is permitted, and in countries that do not permit DTCA are under increasing pressure to allow such ...

The increasing prominence of new Internet and social media technologies and their growing importance as a source of health information are pushing the pharmaceutical industry towards digital channels. This paper explores the potential impacts of the pharmaceutical industry’s increasing interest in online marketing and considers how the existing regulatory framework in Canada translates into the...

Kim’s overview of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory actions from 2005 to 2014 is a comprehensive analysis of the US regulatory experience with online direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription medicines. This experience is of relevance internationally as online DTCA reaches the English-speaking public globally, despite the illegality of DTCA in most countries. The most co...

The causes and ramifications of the rise in the consumer debt burden over time have been subject to much debate. This paper first offers a brief overview and analysis of the key economic variables used to evaluate consumer debt levels. The principal focus of the paper, however, is a broad review of the literature on the topic of consumer debt to provide a framework for how to assess recent cred...

background for the purpose of understanding the food and drug administration’s (fda’s) concerns regarding online promotion of prescription drugs advertised directly to consumers, this study examines notices of violations (novs) and warning letters issued by the fda to pharmaceutical manufacturers.   methods the fda’s warning letters and novs, which were issued to pharmaceutical companies over a...

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