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Report: Drug Ads Continue Deception After Sanctions

A December 4, 2002 report by congressional investigators from the Unites States General Accounting Office (GAO) say that some drug companies continue to run deceptive ads and TV commercials, sometimes for years, after being cited for violations by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Drug maker Pfizer, for example, continued to make deceptive claims about its cholesterol drug Lipitor over the last four years despite several letters from the FDA telling them to stop.

In 1997, the FDA revised its guidelines to allow drug companies to do more direct-to-consumer advertising. Since then, consumer advertising has increased almost 150 percent and the FDA issued 88 letters accusing drug companies of ad violations. Some companies, the report said, “have received multiple regulatory letters over time for new advertisements promoting the same drug.”

The drug companies may have found a convenient loophole. New FDA regulations have increased the amount of time it takes for letters to be sent to offending companies by anywhere from 2 to 11 weeks. By limiting their ad campaigns to short periods of time, drug companies can have deceptive ads complete their “broadcast life cycle” and be seen by millions of people before the agency can issue a regulatory sanctioning letter.

This report estimates that each year, 8.5 million Americans request and receive prescriptions for specific drugs after seeing these direct-to-consumer ads.

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