More evidence against DTCA

Just as the debate over whether Canada should allow Direct-To-Consumer-Advertising of prescription medicines on television rages on, scientists released this week another peer-reviewed study that concludes DTCA is bad medicine.

The study, conducted partially in Toronto, compared sales patterns of a cholesterol drug in the United States and Canada. The U.S. allows DTCA over the airwaves while Canada restricts the form it can take. CanWest Global is currently challenging Canada’s DTCA ban in the courts, hoping to eliminate it and allow Canadian broadcasters to air the same sorts of ads seen in the U.S.
A good Canadian Press review, published in The Toronto Star, outlines the latest research here, with the study due out in a forthcoming issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.