• Brandweek, Thursday, November 17, 2005 4:30 PM

The pharmaceutical industry has weathered its share of blows for advertising drugs to consumers without fair warnings of possible side effects. Remember the controversy surrounding Vioxx, Celebrex, and Viagra? Ambien, the sleeping aid, ran an ad in the Nov. 21 issue of The New Yorker offering users a free seven-day trial of the drug, sans naming the drugs' possible side-effects. Better yet, the ad neglected to state what condition Ambien treats, or offer educational information about the drug. According to a story in today's Brandweek, marketing codes produced by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America require ads to list such information; but the code doesn't take effect until Jan. 1.

Read the whole story at Brandweek »