US DTC study: "lack of fairness" in drug risk info

A study of prescription drug advertisements on US television has found that most do not present a fair balance of information, according to its authors from the University of Georgia, USA. Following a decade of direct-to-consumer advertising, the research team examined a week of cable and network television drug promotion.

A 60-second advertisement would dedicate on average less than 8% of its running time to side effect disclaimers, compared with less than 4.4 seconds for a 30-second slot. The shortest advertisements, at 15 seconds, contained no warnings at all, the study claims.

The commercials being examined aired in 2003 and the definition of "fair and balanced" was defined by the University of Georgia team as a drugmaker-sponsored advertisement which gave equal time to the negative aspects of drugs as for the positives.