General

According to researchers, pharmaceutical advertising is a burning issue which can be annoying and even deleterious for consumers.

Firstly, pharmaceutical advertising increases the drugs consumption within the population. Pharmaceutical advertising is a recent experiment which generates billions of dollars each year around the world. Some drugs are blockbuster drugs and sometimes certain pharmacists in various countries can use price gouging or deliver indiscriminate information about drugs to boost their sale through the media or social networks. Consumers watch the advertisements, have conversations with their family physicians about availability of the drugs and ask for prescriptions. Or they just purchase over the counter medications or order them online at spur of the moment.

Secondly, pharmaceutical advertising is likely to cause harm on consumers. The population, because of pharmaceutical ads, tends to take drugs at any time for anything which could be harmful for their health. Also, many of these drugs bring about lifestyle problems like insomnia, stress or even thin eyelashes. It is uncommon that the consumers can easily buy a promotional pharmaceutical product on the Internet after seeing the advertisements on TV without taking into account of the harm of this product.

On the other hand, studies show that there is no evidence promotional pharmaceutical products improve treatment quality or if patients only consume them in case of real needs. They say that the ads are usually not for life-threatening situations but rather help to increase the sale of drugs of pharmaceutical companies and their consumption can have serious impact on people's health. For example, Zelnorm for irritable bowel syndrome and Tylenol for pain are two promotional pharmaceutical products were found have to have only 5% of more effectiveness than a placebo; however, there is a risk of causing stomach or even cardiac problems.

In conclusion, pharmaceutical advertising is a danger. Drugs are not a toy people can play with; for this reason, I think advertising drugs are supposed to be ethical and regulated to prevent misuses, health problems within the population.