New FDA Educational Program Targets Poor Advertising

The US Food and Drug Administration launched a program last week that is designed to “educate healthcare providers about their role in ensuring that prescription drug advertising and promotion is truthful,” according to an FDA press release.

Known as the Truthful Prescription Drug Advertising and Promotion program, or the Bad Ad Program, the initiative is aimed at teaching healthcare providers to identify misleading information such as an overstatement of a drug’s effectiveness or an omission of risk information. The program is also meant to bolster FDA’s ability to monitor all prescription drug promotions by encouraging doctors and prescribers to report advertising violations.

FDA’s Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC) is overseeing the program, which will be introduced in three phases. During Phase 1, DDMAC will distribute educational materials to healthcare professionals at certain medical conventions and via medical societies. During Phases 2 and 3, FDA will expand these collaborative efforts and update the educational materials developed for Phase 1.

Reader comments

"This is another example of how the Government wastes tax dollars. FDA should be doing more inspections and increasing drug approval times. The payback on this is almost non existant." Dan Worden, New Hope, PA, May 21, 2010.