FDA "Bad Ad" Initiative: Encouraging Health Care Professionals and the Public to Report MIsleading Drug Ads

Story from "The Pink Sheet" Daily, a Pharma Industry online news service, July 18, 2012

Martin Berman-Gorvine writes about the FDA continuing to publicize the program for health care professionals and the public.

In the past two months, FDA’s Office of Prescription Drug Promotion has been advertising its “Bad Ad” program in several medical journals, encouraging healthcare professionals to report potentially misleading drug promotion.

The ads have been running in the Journal of the American Medical Association, American Family Physician, the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy and others. For more information, see information later in this post.

The FDA website also contains information on evaluating "direct to consumer" (DTC) advertising. Most people don't know that only one other country in the world, New Zealand, allows this type of advertising.

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Representing Whistleblowers, Beyond "Bad Ads"

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What may be critical to note here is some healthcare professionals, pharma industry employees, and others can have information far more than just a "bad ad"- there may be the possibility of criminal action on the part of the pharma company, for not just illegal marketing but fraud, failure to warn, and violations of the False Claims Act. 

My specialty is to represent whistleblowers who bring this information forward.

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Here's a little known fact, you can find this in the information on the "Bad Ad" program direct from the FDA's website:

The pharmaceutical industry spends nearly three times as much on advertising to health care professionals as they do advertising to consumers, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The webpage continues, describing the program. 

For more information on how to proceed as a whistleblower:

Call me at 215-790-7300 or write chomolash@sheller.com. Timing is important- our firm not only has the resources and track record representing whistleblowers, we bring a strategic perspective to how and when to file, optimizing the potential for both "first to file" and subsequent claims.