According to the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, a consumer advocacy group is up in arms over unregulated pharma ads found on YouTube.
The Prescription Project reports that medical device ads for prominent companies appear on YouTube, but without the disclaimers and warnings that pharmaceutical or medical device ads must have on television. The group is calling for regulation of ads, regardless of the medium, particularly given the increase of internet-based advertising used by pharmas.
I’m with PP that the FDA should get its act together and regulate ads of all kinds–be they on TV or the internet–so that they meet the same standards for disclosures and warnings. Why should the millions of Internet surfers in search of health information on the Internet not get the same protections as those passively watching the tube? The answer is: they should have the same access to the same information, regardless of the way in which it is delivered.
It would seem to me that companies would not go to the trouble of creating different ads that lack important consumer information if they didn’t know they were jumping through a giant loophole. So, FDA close the hole and protect all Americans regardless of how they get their information.
Summer Johnson, PhD