Public Citizen Seeks Action On Ads To US Doctors

In a letter to US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, Public Citizen's Health Research Group director Sidney Wolfe has asked the agency to step up enforcement of FDA laws covering drug advertising aimed at physicians. Dr Wolfe cites widespread violations of these laws, and urges the FDA to issue more official warning letters and recruit a larger staff to work on these problems.

Enclosed with the letter is a copy of an article written by Dr Wolfe for The Lancet (September 5) which discusses what he calls "the demeaning way, inside the drug industry, that physicians are viewed, brainwashed and conquered." He points out that there are two main remedies to counter such campaigns - either to try to immunize doctors against "these often false and misleading advertising campaigns by much more education" during their training so that they have needed scientifically-based knowledge for prescribing decisions, or use FDA enforcement to stop false and misleading advertising campaigns which Dr Kessler himself has "stated can result in 'needless injury or even death'."

Dr Wolfe points out that widespread violations of advertising regulations are not only documented by outside reviewers, who have found potential violations in 92% of ads, but also in current information from the FDA.