WANTED: AN FDA REGULATION THAT WILL STOP BIG PHARMA FROM ROUTINELY USING DANGEROUSLY DECEPTIVE STATISTICS

December 13, 2003

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2003

WANTED: AN FDA REGULATION THAT WILL STOP BIG PHARMA FROM ROUTINELY USING

DANGEROUSLY DECEPTIVE STATISTICS IN ITS ADVERTISING. THE FDA WILL SOON CHANGE

SOME AD RULES, BUT IT WILL NOT HAVE THE GUTS TO MAKE THE REAL CHANGE THAT IS

REQUIRED

By RFD Editor, Nicholas Regush

It has gone on long enough. The charade must end. This business of using

deceptive statistics in prescrption drug advertising, particularly on TV, and

often during network news broadcasts, borders on fraud. And the practice is

dangerous. The FDA simply lacks the guts to stop this madness.

I'm referring to the hugely bloated percentages of RISK REDUCTION used by drug

companies to boost their products, which often are of marginal value.

This deceptive practice is highly typical of advertising for drugs, known as

" statins, " to lower cholesterol. If, for example, patients take a drug over a

five-year period and about 14 in 100 develop a heart attack and/or a

cardiovascular-related death, compared to about 22 in 100 on a placebo, the drug

company will hype a 33 per cent risk reduction. This is called " relative risk

reduction. " In other words, take this drug and you reduce your risk by one

third. The percentage is arrived at by showing a percentage change from 22 to

14. But that's a ton of baloney, especially if you are supposedly aiming to

provide potential patients with proper information. That shift from 22 to 14 is

ONLY an 8 per cent risk reduction - and this is what should be allowed in ads.

It's called an " absolute risk reduction. " Anyone who is involved in medicine and

still mainstains that it is correct to use a relative risk reduction, rather

than an absolute risk reduction, to inform potential patients about a

drug, is nothing less than a hustler and a cheat.

Because of a gutless FDA which makes it easy for Big Pharma to deceive millions

of people each day with its ridiculous numbers for risk reduction, many people

undoubtedly think that taking a new drug will provide a huge benefit.

One reason why the FDA doesn't do anything about this is because the vast

majority of medical reporters continue to flog the same risk reduction bilge as

the drug companies do.

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