"Out of Control Drug Marketing"

In a world where doctors are more educated and informed than ever before, why does the Drug Industry need to increase it's marketing efforts. Logic would tell us, that if we had some sort of symptom we would go to the appropriate provider and they would guide and direct our care. Well, we live in unlogical world. We live in a world that is filled with greed and deception. If we, as children of God, took care of our body (temple) the way is was designed and created to, we would be able to live within the greatness God has intended for us. Instead, we look for the road that is the quickest and requires the least amount of effort. This road, that is traveled by many, leads towards destruction of your body and the way it was intended to run. Please inform and educate yourself before you take any medication!


Drug Companies Spent $29.9 billion in 2005 on Promotions

The study published in the August 16, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, (NEJM) noted that in spite of increasing criticisms, direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs continues to increase in the US. It should be noted that presently only the United States and New Zealand allow drug makers to advertise prescription medications directly to consumers.

Just to give you an idea of the scale, this study showed that total spending on pharmaceutical promotion grew from $11.4 billion in 1996 to $29.9 billion in 2005. During that time spending by drug companies on direct-to-consumer advertising increased by 330%. In comparison, the best available estimates are that the entire chiropractic profession only grosses about 9 billion a year!

The good news (strong sarcasm here) is that only 14% of all the drug promotional money was spent on direct-to-consumer advertising. That means that about $4.2 billion was spent on general advertising and the rest of the $29.9 billion was spent convincing doctors to prescribe their drugs! Wouldn't it be nice if the wellness industry spent even a fraction of that amount convincing us DCs to promote their products?

But there may be a solution. (More sarcasm on the way) If every chiropractor gave half of everything he or she earned to a campaign for advertising chiropractic to the general public, we could slightly surpass what the drug companies spend on consumer advertising. That is, of course, unless they decided to spend a higher percentage of the almost 30 billion each year to teach people of the lifestyle of better living through chemistry!

The NEJM study also exposed an interesting fact regarding the FDA. As most people are aware the FDA has come under fire recently for not protecting the public adequately. (Boy is that an understatement.) According to the study the FDA has actually decreased the number of violation letters they have sent to drug companies. The study claims, "the number of letters sent by the FDA to pharmaceutical manufacturers regarding violations of drug-advertising regulations fell from 142 in 1997 to only 21 in 2006.