Small changes can be monumental

The Prescription Access Litigation project  at Community Catalyst is submitting comments in support of five new standards for describing the risks associated with prescription drugs in tv or radio ads. We invite your organization to sign-on to our comments in support of these standards, or to submit your own. our comments, or to submit your own.

These groundbreaking new standards proposed by FDA regulate how risk information is publicized in direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs on TV and radio. The FDA is implementing a 2007 law requiring all broadcast drug ads to explain risks in a way that is “clear, conspicuous and neutral….” These new standards will require that drug ads on TV and radio:

• Explain risks using consumer-friendly “language that is readily understandable” using “everyday words” that avoid “vague terms” and that “accurately convey the frequency of [a] risk ….”
• Simultaneously describe the risks verbally and in text on the TV screen, without any other distracting sounds or images, at a speed and size that consumers can read, hear and understand.

While these may appear to be simple, common sense requirements, they will monumentally change how drugs are advertised on TV and radio. Industry will no longer be able to distract consumers from the very serious risks of prescription medicines by showing idyllic scenes of smiling people walking on the beach or strumming away at a guitar.