Debate on DTC Advertising Heats Up!

This past June, the American Medical Association (AMA) joined myriad other consumer and medical interest groups to ask the question whether direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising by pharmaceutical companies had gotten out of hand. Sensing the way the winds were blowing, the pharmaceutical industry's trade group PhRMA (Pharmaceutical and Research Manufacturers of America) announced on Aug. 2 that it would self-police DTC drug advertising practices by signing up pharmaceutical manufacturers to a voluntary agreement to follow PhRMA's new DTC policies. In this issue, we will look at those policies and at the reactions they caused in the medical, legislative and consumer communities.

An Interesting Question

The rising number of DTC advertisements in recent years has brought up an interesting question: If drug companies are going over the heads of doctors, can they rely any longer on the “Learned Intermediary Doctrine” to protect them from liability when consumers experience adverse reactions? Drug companies that advertise their wares directly to consumers through print advertising, television and radio commercials, in effect, bypass doctors to convince potential consumers that they have an ailment, or that they should purchase one drug over any other if they want to cure their maladies. Can some physician liability for bad drug-use outcomes be shifted to the drug manufacturer that encouraged a patient's use of its drug? The answer to these questions is explored in this Special Issue's article, “Perez v. Wyeth and Direct-to-Consumer Advertising.”