• July 5, 2005

A soft advertising marketplace will be hit harder if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist gets his way in demanding a two-year voluntary ban on direct-to-consumer drug advertising.

Sen. Frist (R-Tennessee) sent a letter to the General Accounting Office on Friday asking that the Food and Drug Administration get "prior review and approval authority for direct-to-consumer advertising," according to published reports. The Senator said that skyrocketing costs of direct-to-consumer ads can lead to "inappropriate prescribing. [The ads] can also oversell benefits and undersell risks."

Overall, drugmakers spent over $3.5 billion in 2004 on media, according to Nielsen Monitor Plus. Since the middle of last year--because of warnings by the FDA--drugmakers like Merck's Vioxx and Pfizer's Bextra have been pulled from the market.

Executives at the Association of National Advertisers reacted strongly, opposing the ban.

ANA cited freedom-of-speech concerns, and said millions have gone to physicians for the first time to discuss a health issue because of a prescription drug advertisement.