Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Products

Revision with unchanged content. The increased use of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription pharmaceuticals has caused everyone from physicians to congressmen to question the ethics of the practice. Although the Federal Drug Administration regulates advertising content, healthcare professionals often criticize the practice on the basis of weakening the doctor-patient relationship and jeopardizing patient well-being. Pharmaceutical companies have found print and broadcast ads in DTC campaigns to greatly increase the sales of their products. However, because of the impact of DTC on patient lives and health, the ethics of the practice need examination. This book, therefore, creates a model for ethical decision-making within the industry and provides an ethical analysis of current DTC efforts. In order to provide an effective model that satisfies ethical boundaries as well as corporate financial goals, a synthesis is created which employs a normative approach to stakeholder theory from business ethics so that each group affected by DTC campaigns can have their needs appropriately addressed. Visual and linguistic features of DTC advertisements are analyzed and ethical revisions are suggested. The ethical analysis and revisions presented should be useful to professionals in Communications, Marketing, Pharmaceuticals, or anyone else interested in advertising ethics.