Among the common attacks on pharmaceutical companies and direct-to-consumer advertising of their products is that patients will come into doctors? offices, demand to get the drugs they see advertised on television, and then receive them because doctors won?t be willing to say no or to recommend more appropriate treatment.
A new study challenges this presumption. In the majority of cases in which patients reacted to advertising, doctors either recommended a different treatment or a lifestyle change rather than the advertised drug. And when prescribing the advertised drug, about half the time they did so because the drug was indeed best for the patient and about half the time they did so because the drug was equally effective compared to alternatives. In only a tiny percentage of cases did physicians seek to placate patients by prescribing advertised drugs even though other treatments were better.
Basically, most doctors aren?t idiots, most patients aren?t idiots, but the question remains open for most health-care ?activists.?
