Pharmaceutical advertisement abroad.

[Say it aint so]

I have a question, specially for those who travel for lengths of time or live in another country. For me since covid, I have traveled quite often to Canada and once to Portugal and once to Greece. What I have noticed and again, it's only four countries I compare, that only in the US is pharmaceutical advertisement shown on television. What about other places? I know for a fact it's illegal in Canada. I didn't see any in Greece. In Portugal because I got covid and had to stay an extra week stuck in a hotel till negative, I didn't see any there as well. For those who don't live in the US, we are inundated with drug commercials both prescription as the "ask your doctor if ____ is right for you" commercials go; along with a heavy dose of non FDA regulated drugs in the Dietary Supplement category and claims to help you with everything under the sun. I love sports and watch them all the time, and it's bombarded with erectile dysfunction commercials. Not only that pharmaceutical companies, unless something changed that I missed, are free to work out monetary rewards with doctors to push their products. Why I ask is this. The US is a drug dependent nation, and I look at this whole system of where drugs are being pushed and how hard they are pushed, and think to myself, well of course we're drug dependent. It's not a causation claim, but it just makes me wonder.

 

[Occams Barber]

I have a question, specially for those who travel for lengths of time or live in another country. For me since covid, I have traveled quite often to Canada and once to Portugal and once to Greece. What I have noticed and again, it's only four countries I compare, that only in the US is pharmaceutical advertisement shown on television. What about other places? I know for a fact it's illegal in Canada. I didn't see any in Greece. In Portugal because I got covid and had to stay an extra week stuck in a hotel till negative, I didn't see any there as well. For those who don't live in the US, we are inundated with drug commercials both prescription as the "ask your doctor if ____ is right for you" commercials go; along with a heavy dose of non FDA regulated drugs in the Dietary Supplement category and claims to help you with everything under the sun. I love sports and watch them all the time, and it's bombarded with erectile dysfunction commercials. Not only that pharmaceutical companies, unless something changed that I missed, are free to work out monetary rewards with doctors to push their products. Why I ask is this. The US is a drug dependent nation, and I look at this whole system of where drugs are being pushed and how hard they are pushed, and think to myself, well of course we're drug dependent. It's not a causation claim, but it just makes me wonder.

Drug companies are not allowed to advertise direct-to-consumers in Australia.

OB

 

[Pommer]

I have a question, specially for those who travel for lengths of time or live in another country. For me since covid, I have traveled quite often to Canada and once to Portugal and once to Greece. What I have noticed and again, it's only four countries I compare, that only in the US is pharmaceutical advertisement shown on television. What about other places? I know for a fact it's illegal in Canada. I didn't see any in Greece. In Portugal because I got covid and had to stay an extra week stuck in a hotel till negative, I didn't see any there as well. For those who don't live in the US, we are inundated with drug commercials both prescription as the "ask your doctor if ____ is right for you" commercials go; along with a heavy dose of non FDA regulated drugs in the Dietary Supplement category and claims to help you with everything under the sun. I love sports and watch them all the time, and it's bombarded with erectile dysfunction commercials. Not only that pharmaceutical companies, unless something changed that I missed, are free to work out monetary rewards with doctors to push their products. Why I ask is this. The US is a drug dependent nation, and I look at this whole system of where drugs are being pushed and how hard they are pushed, and think to myself, well of course we're drug dependent. It's not a causation claim, but it just makes me wonder.

This has long been a pet-peeve with me. We got cigarettes to quit advertising on television, we ought to do the same with pharmaceuticals.

 

[Occams Barber]

This has long been a pet-peeve with me. We got cigarettes to quit advertising on television, we ought to do the same with pharmaceuticals.

We managed to stop cigarette advertising and retail display a few years back. We even gave cigarette manufacturers a range of interesting new, mandatory, packaging.

Vaping sales are also about to be banned apart from pharmacies on a doctor's prescription.

Next stop is gambling. We have major problems with poker machine addiction and excessive promotion of online sports betting.

OB

 

[Pommer]

We managed to stop cigarette advertising and retail display a few years back. We even gave cigarette manufacturers a range of interesting new, mandatory, packaging.
View attachment 331238

Vaping sales are also about to be banned apart from pharmacies on a doctor's prescription.

Next stop is gambling. We have major problems with poker machine addiction and excessive promotion of online sports betting.

OB

How dare your government try to make the society in which it finds itself “better”?

As you can see, here in America, we tend to believe that society should inform government as to how to draft the Laws of the Government to comport more closely with the whims and fads of [altogether now], “we, the people!”.

And yet, “popular opinion” is in wild dispute.
America needs an enemy, if a foreign one isn’t readily available we can manufacture enemies here at home, too. (We’re really good at it too!)

It’ll be better in 10-15 years as (we) Baby Boomers die off.

 

[Occams Barber]

It’ll be better in 10-15 years as (we) Baby Boomers die off.

You should be a little more optimistic.

US Life Expectancy continues to drop so (you) Baby Boomers should be out of the way in 5 - 10 years.

OB

 

[Pommer]

You should be a little more optimistic.

US Life Expectancy continues to drop so (you) Baby Boomers should be out of the way in 5 - 10 years.

OB

Or an (as yet undiscovered) asteroid of, say 45km streaking our way?
Consciousness was too good for Earth anyways.

 

[Paidiske]

Drug companies are not allowed to advertise direct-to-consumers in Australia.

OB

I would nuance this only very slightly by saying that this is true for prescription drugs. OTC drugs may be advertised to consumers, although there are careful restrictions on things like pain medications for children.

My observation - as someone who worked in the pharmaceutical industry - is that the companies will do whatever they're allowed to get away with; and their concern is selling more, not whether the consumer is helped by buying and using the product. I am strongly in favour of governments keeping that behaviour in the "mostly harmless" category.

 

[DaisyDay]

I was reading the book 'The Poison Squad" and yesterday I got the documentary of it on my youtube feed.

Things - food and drugs - have improved tremendously since 120 years ago with the Pure Food and Drug Act and Truth in Advertising, but America has a ways to go to catch up with other countries.

 

[SimplyMe]

Drug companies are not allowed to advertise direct-to-consumers in Australia.

OB

To be fair, it wasn't allowed here in the US (for prescription drugs) until the 1980s, in a very limited way, and I think about 1998 when most restrictions were removed.

 

[Say it aint so]

We managed to stop cigarette advertising and retail display a few years back. We even gave cigarette manufacturers a range of interesting new, mandatory, packaging.
View attachment 331238

Vaping sales are also about to be banned apart from pharmacies on a doctor's prescription.

Next stop is gambling. We have major problems with poker machine addiction and excessive promotion of online sports betting.

OB

That is the same package requirement in Canada.

 

[Say it aint so]

It Paid Doctors Kickbacks. Now, Novartis Will Pay a $678 Million Settlement.​

"The pharmaceutical company spent more than $100 million on lavish meals, fishing junkets, golf outings, sporting events and speaker fees to influence doctors to prescribe its drugs, federal prosecutors said."​

​

The problem here is the same group who pay doctors to subscribe their products, are the same people who pay politicians to do nothing about that practice.

​

 

[George95]

MOD HAT ON

This thread has been moved from American Politics to The Kitchen Sink.

MOD HAT OFF​