C_Bobier-Vid
From Kenneth Richman
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From Kenneth Richman
Abstract: Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising (DTC-PA) is designed to present new drugs in an appealing light, typically by depicting healthy, happy individuals as emblematic of the advertised drug’s potential effects. These advertisements promote products intended to address serious matters of life, health, stigma, and well-being, domains of profound concern to patients. Research shows that DTC-PA succeeds in influencing both patients and providers. The dominant U.S. regulatory approach has been to permit such advertising under conditions of content restriction—e.g., requiring risk disclosures and mandating certain qualifying statements. I argue the nature of false hope suggests that such controls are limited: the very nature of false hope is that the individuals are fixated on an unlikely but highly desired possible outcome. Contraindications hold little or no sway on a person attending to the hoped-for outcome. All a person sees while watching an advertisement is someone with his or her condition who is healthy and happy on account of the drug; the qualifications and possible side effects are attentionally powerless. Therefore, the solution, I argue, is that DTC-PA be banned. This is because false hope harms people and collectives, DTC pharmaceutical advertising fosters false hope, and it is wrong to harm people.
Christopher Bobier is an associate professor of foundational sciences at Central Michigan University College of Medicine in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. An ethicist and health policy expert by training, he earned his MA and PhD from the University of California, Irvine, and his MHHSA from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. His research interests include (i) the ethics of solid organ xenotransplantation, (ii) the ethics of dual use research of concern, and (iii) the nature and significance of false hope in medicine.