Healthy Skepticism's new AdWatch: understanding drug promotion

Healthy Skepticism's new AdWatch: understanding drug promotion.

The AdWatch section of the Healthy Skepticism website (http://www.healthyskepticism.org/adwatch.asp) aims to improve medical decision-making by illuminating the techniques used in drug advertising. AdWatch draws on 20 years of dialogue about drug promotion plus ideas from many disciplines, especially logic, psychology and marketing.

Promotion of healthy nutrition of seafarers.

Nutrition disorders arise from various interacting factors: cultural, environmental, genetic, physiological, and psychological. Excessive consumption of highly processed food, sugar, salt, alcohol, and saturated fats is a problem nowadays, and consumption of fish, vegetables, and fruit is insufficient. Overeating and an unbalanced diet are often accompanied by stress and a lack of physical acti...

Prohibition against off-label drug promotion challenged.

Ensuring ethical drug promotion--whose responsibility?

1 Chin-Dusting JPF, Dart AM. Age and the treatment gap in the use of statins. Lancet 2003; 361: 1925–26. 2 DeWilde S, Carey IM, Bremner SA, Richards N, Hilton SR, Cook DG. Evolution of statin prescribing 1994–2001: a case of ageism but not of sexism. Heart 2003; 89: 417–21. 3 Whincup PH, Emberson JR, Lennon L, Walker M, Papacosta O, Thompson A. Low prevalence of lipid lowering drug use in older...

The Conundrum of Online Prescription Drug Promotion; Comment on “Trouble Spots in Online Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Promotion: A Content Analysis of FDA Warning Letters”

This commentary discusses pertinent issues from Hyosun Kim’s paper on online prescription drug promotion. The study is well-designed and the findings highlight some of the consequences of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) decision to deregulate online advertising of prescription drugs. While Kim’s findings confirm some of the early concerns, they also provide a perspective of implement...