There are only two countries in the world that permit direct advertising to the general public which promote prescription medications – New Zealand and the USA. In an Op-ed to the NYT, a grieving husband writes about the loss of his wife – and the unconscionable misleading advertising of the immunotherapy that didn’t help her.
“It would be incredibly uplifting if it weren’t so utterly misleading and exploitative. To date, only about one in five patients with Stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer has seen any measurable response to Opdivo; and, in those patients who do respond, the median increase in life expectancy is only about three months compared with standard chemotherapy.
“The overall five-year survival rate for people with Stage 4 lung cancer is between 1 and 5 percent. Instead of a “chance of living longer,” a more truthful narrator would have said, “Opdivo provides an outside chance for people with advanced lung cancer to live just a few months longer.” Click here to read the full article.
Not uncommonly patients would arrive in my office with a request for the newest inhaler they saw on TV which might cost $250 compared to the $15 one they had – both with equal efficacy. It just doesn’t feel right to push the corporate the bottom line this way. Is it ethical to falsely raise expectations of the desperate patients and families? Let’s get these drug ads off the air. Let’s use our pharmacists, medical teams, and validated web sites to provide the best information.
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