WASHINGTON — Dozens of pharmaceutical companies have pledged that their upcoming television advertisements will direct viewers to more information about how much a drug might cost, such as a page on a company website, PhRMA president Steven Ubl announced Monday.
The trade group is not requiring its members to include actual list prices in their advertisements, a policy idea that Trump administration officials first floated in May.
The problem here is the advertising and marketing. It was illegal for a reason. American are dying and being exploited financially, because of Industry Advertising. The so called “Opiate Epidemic” should ave been a heads up, but they used that to market dangerous or useless drugs, ineffective treatments, and pseudo science. It is clear the adverting, and subsequent paying off of public officials was the cause. Instead of going after the culprits, they are now denying treatment to people with pain, another form of healthcare rationing, or a new form of Death Squads.
They came up with this stupid idea, in order to please industry insiders and profiteers. These corporations have too much power, and money, extracted from Americans. They have undermined the system, removed regulations, distorted our media, and destroyed lives. No one spoke up when Medicare was not “allowed” to negotiate drug prices, leading to an exponential jump in drug prices.
If the issue of advertising drugs to the public was not so serious, it could be a skit at Saturday Night Live. Why do government officials and the media persist in being so pathetically oblivious to the real facts here?
1) Instead of nitpicking around the corners, the FDA should simply revoke its bad decision of 1997 allowing the inappropriate advertising of prescription drugs, which is nothing more than an advertising maneuver to “push” demand for the branded product; outspending to diminish the generic equivalent.
2) Why does anybody seriously believe the public is competent to seek prescriptions for these drugs that require an intensive clinical education and experience? Most people cannot competently pick a diarrhea medication.
3) Also, why should Big Pharma be allowed to write-off this advertising on taxes while increasing the cost of pharmaceuticals to patients and their insurance?
4) Any approach to pricing will most likely be no different than the auto industry’s MSRP-the sticker posted on new autos for sale. However, the MSRP does not indicate what that dealer actually purchased the auto for; nor any rebates offered to the dealer by the manufacturer.
5) If Big Pharma is mistakenly allowed to continue pushing demand for their products through advertising, than pricing should detail:
-R&D cost
-Lobbying and advertising cost
-Discounts and rebates provided to PBM; insurance carrier
-Price product sold to the EU, Switzerland, Canada, UK, and Australia (ideally percent profit allowed by those countries)
Remember, this is the same industry, in cahoots with its distributors, that created and nurtured the opioid crisis, by advertising to the public to push demand to providers, as if its was merely a brand of candy.