The Bitter Pill Awards, scheduled for April 26th in Washington D.C., use humor to highlight the serious problems caused by drug industry marketing, particularly direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs.
DTCA includes television, radio, magazine and internet ads that target consumers directly, rather than targeting doctors.
The drug industry spends more than $4 billion a year advertising brand-name prescription drugs to consumers. For every dollar that drug companies spend on consumer advertising, they earn an estimated $4.20 in sales.
This means that in 2004, the drug industry's consumer ad campaigns earned them up to $16.8 billion in extra profits from expensive, brand-name drugs.
The Awards originally began as a parody of an annual event called the " DTC National Advertising Awards " in which the drug industry congratulates itself on another successful year of advertising expensive brand-name drugs to consumers.
The Bitter Pill Awards aims to educate the public, the press and politicians about the dangers of runaway drug marketing, the need for consumers to be skeptical about drug industry propaganda, and the need for the FDA and Congress to more closely regulate drug ads.
Nominations are now open (also see last years "winners"- LOL):
http://www.bitterpillawards.org/
2 comments:
Sorry - screwed up the html tags previously - here's what I intended to post:
Insider, have you checked out and the accompanying free Placebo Gazette? Both crafted by a private practice doc in Maine, USA, named Doug Farrago. He let's loose both with human and real life stories from drug reps and docs.
His spoof drug ads alone are worth the print subscription price and I've gotten this for PharmGirl, MD, for the last two Christmases. Unfortunately, Dr. Doug started this venture before blogging was big (but probably makes far more money by keeping it a print 'journal').
His Placebo Gazette is a more serious discussion of real world problems with docs, HMOs, and Pharma, with his usual wistful and blistering critiques.
I absolutely love your content, especially the antique drug adverts. Keep up the great work - I lurk more often than I comment.
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