FDA Doing New DTC Survey
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?I predict physician attitudes will remain similar to 2002.? |
A new DTC study is being proposed by FDA. (see FDA study here) This one is to doctors and other health care providers called ?physician extenders? by FDA. Of course we know then as nurses and physician assistants but the government likes to invent some new term just so it sounds official. So these ?physician extenders? are now being included because the FDA did not include them in their original 2002 study of physicians and they feel their role is being expanded in the future.
The FDA feels that this is an appropriate study given the 10 year time period since it was last done. They want to know what current health care providers (HCP?s) feel about DTC and increased the survey size to get representative samples by age, sex, and ethnicity of the HCP population. Importantly this new survey will ask about social media and awareness of drug company sites.
While I have no problem with FDA surveys, this is information that has been gathered by other independent research companies since 2002. Like most FDA studies, this will take a long time to field and publish results due to mandatory public feedback process and the slow speed to get it fielded because of internal reviews and budget considerations. That being said, l hope FDA gets some useful data they can incorporate in future guidances.
I predict physician attitudes will remain similar to 2002. There will be a segment that thinks DTC corrupts medicine through over use and those that find it useful to have more meaningful discussions with patients. After 15 years of allowing television ads, doctors surely have gotten used to seeing DTC and responding to patient inquiries. Few will admit they prescribe inappropriately, so I predict the incidence of undue influence will be reported as low.
If I were the FDA I would focus on the Internet and how physicians want promotional information regulated. Do HCP?s feel consumers can tell promotional from objective content? Do they get misleading impressions of drugs from manufacturer sites? Do they come in with risk information seen on the web? How are physicians themselves changing digitally and are they any closer than a decade ago to using electronic records and prescriptions? These questions would be more useful than asking about physician attitudes towards DTC, which is protected commercial speech. Does it matter if physicians want it banned? It is better to ask and get actionable information on specific things FDA can make choices on in their guidances. I hope FDA goes for useful/actionable to know versus nice to know information.
Bob Ehrlich, Chairman
DTC Perspectives, Inc
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