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American Morning

The Big Question: Are You Tricked Into Paying More For Drugs?

Aired May 01, 2002 - 08:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The Big Question this hour, are you being tricked into paying for more drugs? Ads pushing expensive drugs are everywhere. And a lot of them don't even mention what the drug is for. They just say ask for it. The ads are working, and some doctors, eager to please, are prescribing these drugs, even though there are cheaper, and perhaps even safer, older drugs available.

And CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen makes a house call now to alert us to this problem.

Good morning, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Paula, You know, I was sitting at home, watching TV one day, just for an hour, and I can't even count the number of pharmaceutical ads that I saw. As you said, they're everywhere, they're very effective. In fact, a new analysis by the Food and Drug Administration says that 69 percent of the time when a person sees an ad and goes in and asks the doctor for that drug by name, 69 percent the time, he or she gets that drug.

Now critics say that that's a bad thing. It shows that patients are pushy, that they're easily affected by these ads, and the doctors basically are pushovers. Others say this is a good thing, that it shows that the ads are patient education, that it's letting people know what medicines are out there.

Now this study comes out at sort of an interesting time. There's an irony here, because there's another study coming out today, this one out of "The Journal of the American Medical Association," that says that new drugs seem to have more problems than older drugs.

In fact, it says that one out of five new drugs that has come out on the market in about the past 25 years have had serious side effects shown only once it got on the market. It didn't keep the drug from getting approved, it was found out only once the public got a hold of this drug. So the authors of the study say, you know what, clinicians, doctors, ought to consider using older drugs if they're just as effective, because older drugs have been out longer and have a longer track record.

Now the FDA and pharmaceutical industry disagree with this study. They say that it has overstated its claims -- Paula. ZAHN: All right, we're going to leave it there this morning. Thanks for trying to educate us. We appreciate it.

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