Should Pharmaceutical Commercials be allowed on TV?

[MTGreen]

I use the term dangerous as that is in most pharmacy law texts. You are correct that many are safe, but they still require a prescription. However there are certainly Prescription drugs that are truly dangerous as well.

There are very few multi sourced product advertisements on the market today. Drug companies got smart a decade ago. They focus on 2 areas now. The first is drugs for rare diseases. The second is what we call “me-too” drugs, which are bio similar drugs that another company already manufactuers (Very cheap to bring to market). I have not seen many biosimilar ads on TV.

I also agree the FDA red tape is ridiculous.

Agree on most points.
Potentially dangerous adverse reactions/effects are one of the reasons for the FDA designating a drug as prescription only; although another determination is that benefits must outweigh risks.

A "me-too" drug is another drug in the same class as an existing drug but changed enough to call it a new drug. Good examples here are with the original drug Prilosec(omeprazole), then all the me-toos in the same "proton pump inhibitor class" like Prevacid(lansoprazole), Protonix(pantoprazole), Nexium(esomeprazole), etc. They usually all have very similar efficacy and adverse reactions/effects. Me-toos are different enough that they don't require the patent on the original drug in the class (the "index" drug) to run out.

A "biosimilar" drug refers to another company replicating a large molecule protein brand name drug. Because of the size and complexity of these large molecule protein drugs, it is nearly impossible for a second company to reproduce the original company's process and produce exactly an identical large molecule drug. However, they can very closely reproduce it to have the same function and they are required to show the FDA that it is equivalent to the original drug. The concept is very similar to a "generic" drug which refers to small molecule drugs which can be chemically reproduced exactly and both generics and biosimilars require patent expiration before approval. To my knowledge all biosimilars currently require a prescription in the US.

 

[Tinhack]

I believe the FDA "red tape" isn't red or voluminous enough. Just look at how many drugs are brought to market then within a year or two get pulled off the market because they're killing people. The last one was, I think, brain swelling. Just look at the documentation on some of the drugs. Many will site the drug is effective on 40% of the subjects in the tests. 40%? Does that mean 60% died? And if you read between the lines, you might see 40% were cured by a placebo.

No, there's not enough red tape.

Back to the original question, yes, all drug advertising should be removed from TV just like tobacco was removed.

 

[LouNY]

I believe the FDA "red tape" isn't red or voluminous enough. Just look at how many drugs are brought to market then within a year or two get pulled off the market because they're killing people. The last one was, I think, brain swelling. Just look at the documentation on some of the drugs. Many will site the drug is effective on 40% of the subjects in the tests. 40%? Does that mean 60% died? And if you read between the lines, you might see 40% were cured by a placebo.

No, there's not enough red tape.

Back to the original question, yes, all drug advertising should be removed from TV just like tobacco was removed.

You are completely mistaken in your assumptions, it takes many years and clinical trials to get a drug approved by the FDA.
Yep, let's let bureaucratic twits control what we see.
I'm from the government and I'm here to help

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

Dr. Bruzenski is a good example of how messed up (corrupt) the process is for getting successful treatments to patients. He had a 90% cure rate for brain tumor cancers.
Learned about him on a "60 minutes" (more than 20 years ago, don't recall the exact date) segment that showed how the g---------ent aided other busineses in trying to steal his patents and financially drain his business to stop his practice.

U.S. Govt Finally Releases Burzynski Cancer Cure Treatment! | Principia Scientific Intl.

A doctor who claims he has the cure for cancer has won yet another court case against the US Government in his objective of getting his methods into the mainstream. But Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s case has not been reported by the mainstream media, and why? Because the government and the drug...

principia-scientific.com

 

[kenmbz]

Dr. Bruzenski is a good example of how messed up (corrupt) the process is for getting successful treatments to patients. He had a 90% cure rate for brain tumor cancers.
Learned about him on a "60 minutes" (more than 20 years ago, don't recall the exact date) segment that showed how the g---------ent aided other busineses in trying to steal his patents and financially drain his business to stop his practice.

U.S. Govt Finally Releases Burzynski Cancer Cure Treatment! | Principia Scientific Intl.

A doctor who claims he has the cure for cancer has won yet another court case against the US Government in his objective of getting his methods into the mainstream. But Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s case has not been reported by the mainstream media, and why? Because the government and the drug...

principia-scientific.com

Other researchers tried to prove his method worked, and failed.
But a lot of Dr. have researched this as well as other cures like alkalinity.
Some of the Bruzenski research into diet has actually been integrated into modern cancer diet advice.
The Dr. that don't work with Bruzenski that wanted this "cure" to work spent a lot of their own money and time, one was related to my old boss and has been a leader in the trying new things approach and not sticking to mainstream influenced crap.
One of the reasons that immunotherapy is more involved in boosting your own immune system in todays cancer cures and why the percentage of cures has gone up so much.
My old boss had a brain tumor and has been healthy for over a decade.

I do agree most of this research is driven by people who want to keep employed forever, but not all of them and many did try Dr B approach with inconclusive results.

A little trip down google provides all of this information.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

University in Fukuoka, Japan—where independently designed studies of Antineoplastons have been underway for 27 years—without Dr. Burzynski’s (the inventor’s) involvement or supervision. Learn how this team of Japanese pathologists, oncologists and surgeons have studied these anti-cancer compounds using their own methodologies—resulting in the first ever independently-run randomized controlled clinical trials.
“After twenty-seven years of independently testing Antineoplastons—including randomized clinical trials, we found that Dr. Burzynski was right. It’s obviously not anecdotal anymore.”
—Hideaki Tsuda, MD – 2013, Kurume Medical University, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan

Proven Cancer Cure by Dr Burzynski in FDA Cover-up | CanUExplain?

Proven Cancer Cure by Dr Burzynski in FDA Cover-up . Go on a turbulent journey on how the FDA utilizes their agency to both block and orchestrate a group

www.canuexplain.com

 

[kenmbz]

Stanislaw Burzynski: Four Decades of an Unproven Cancer Cure | Skeptical Inquirer

The Houston doctor Stanislaw Burzynski has been using an unproven cancer cure, “antineoplastons,” for decades, but despite its lack of proven anticancer act ...

skepticalinquirer.org

In your articles:
Never mentions that most of his cured patients went through traditional treatments.
Also never mentions what happens to most of his patients after taking this medicine.

The FDA gave him clear and precise instructions on testing etc. and even how to work with them on following the same guidelines others must follow.
They are always onerous, and as I said many Dr have tried to prove him right with no success. Over 30 years or so.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

Stanislaw Burzynski: Four Decades of an Unproven Cancer Cure | Skeptical Inquirer

The Houston doctor Stanislaw Burzynski has been using an unproven cancer cure, “antineoplastons,” for decades, but despite its lack of proven anticancer act ...

skepticalinquirer.org

In your articles:
Never mentions that most of his cured patients went through traditional treatments.
Also never mentions what happens to most of his patients after taking this medicine.

The FDA gave him clear and precise instructions on testing etc. and even how to work with them on following the same guidelines others must follow.
They are always onerous, and as I said many Dr have tried to prove him right with no success. Over 30 years or so.

If you watch any of the videos of people who used his treatments, a fair percentage had already tried chemo and Radiation conventional treatments that failed and the last hope was the Dr. Brusynski treatments.

And with a much higher success rate than chemo/radiation treatments.

TREATED

The Burzynski Patient Group mission is to raise public awareness of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski's breakthrough treatment for cancer using Antineoplastons and gene-targeted therapy.

burzynskipatientgroup.org

I will also add that I worked at a Cancer Research Pharmaceutical Company and most of the Chemist would never let Chemo drugs enter thier bodies!!! This was in personal conversations with the Chemists.
One Chemist said he was there to pay back his college loans with the large salary he was making, and he would probably continue in cancer research becasue that was where the money was.
Follow the dollars is an old adage, but a lot of the time this is where you find peoples motives.

 

[Oaktree]

I believe the FDA "red tape" isn't red or voluminous enough. Just look at how many drugs are brought to market then within a year or two get pulled off the market because they're killing people. The last one was, I think, brain swelling. Just look at the documentation on some of the drugs. Many will site the drug is effective on 40% of the subjects in the tests. 40%? Does that mean 60% died? And if you read between the lines, you might see 40% were cured by a placebo.

And then there are those who rave about "wonder drugs" that are available overseas, but haven't passed FDA muster and who are pushing for less stringent approval procedures.

I agree that these things shouldn't be taken lightly, still keeping in mind that NOTHING is 100% safe. The goal is to strike a balance where the benefits outweigh the risks, and keep users informed on side effects.

 

[MTGreen]

If you watch any of the videos of people who used his treatments, a fair percentage had already tried chemo and Radiation conventional treatments that failed and the last hope was the Dr. Brusynski treatments.

And with a much higher success rate than chemo/radiation treatments.

TREATED

The Burzynski Patient Group mission is to raise public awareness of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski's breakthrough treatment for cancer using Antineoplastons and gene-targeted therapy.

burzynskipatientgroup.org

I will also add that I worked at a Cancer Research Pharmaceutical Company and most of the Chemist would never let Chemo drugs enter thier bodies!!! This was in personal conversations with the Chemists.
One Chemist said he was there to pay back his college loans with the large salary he was making, and he would probably continue in cancer research becasue that was where the money was.
Follow the dollars is an old adage, but a lot of the time this is where you find peoples motives.

Of course they don't want chemo entering their bodies - traditional chemo acts to suppress actively dividing cells and it doesn't discriminate between cancer cells and other rapidly dividing cells like skin, hair, intestinal & urinary tract linings, sperm count, etc. That's the reason for most side effects like hair falling out, diarrhea, etc. Protection for everyone preparing and administering chemo is universally standard and mandatory.

There are newer drugs out that specifically target certain parts of cancer cells -especially with certain cancers, but development has been difficult as the cancer cells look almost identical to normal cells to the drugs and to the immune system