
Similar to cancer and other illnesses, drug addiction affects each and every one of us one way or another. Even if you aren’t first-handedly suffering from addiction, someone you know is most likely struggling with this illness. In America alone, 2.1 million individuals are struggling with substance abuse related to prescription opioid painkillers (Volko). This does not include the 467,000 people who are addicted to heroin, many of whom started their addiction through legal prescription painkillers prescribed by their physicians. Prescription painkillers have been around for quite some time, however, marketing tactics to target specific audiences have surged in the past two decades. Within these past few decades, pharmaceutical companies have been accused of marketing and promoting drugs immorally to both the public and licensed physicians (Harris). The large corporations are offering incentives to doctors to prescribe a certain company’s drug over another company’s drug regardless of which drug may be slightly more effective. These companies have also been seen to target the public through print ads, television, radio commercials and almost every other form of advertising. These companies have created an image in people’s mind that if any flaw occurs within the body, drugs are needed immediately rather than letting the course of the body naturally repair itself. These marketing tactics have led both consumers and prescribers to flood the market and the American body with painkillers. The surplus of pills prescribed leads these individual’s bodies and minds to become dependent on them over their own control. This dependency leads to a life-long drug addiction and contributes to the opioid epidemic America faces today. The use of marketing by pharmaceutical companies to promote and sell prescription painkillers should be regulated by both the Federal Drug Administration and the Center for Disease Control due to its role in leading America further into the depths of an opioid epidemic.

The unregulated means of marketing to physicians has led to an ineffective way to treat illness and disease and often cause harm to the body rather than healing. Pharmaceutical marketing to physicians has led medical professionals to prescribe drugs that are not the most effective treatment for patients and handout prescriptions in amounts more than necessary. Physicians are constantly being offered free small gifts such as pens and notepads for their offices, dinners with the company, and all-expenses paid conferences in which they speak at on behalf of the company. Pharmaceutical companies have been seen to “spend their marketing budget targeting both physicians and patients by giving away gifts, incentives, and by strongly advertising in largely populated places. Studies have been conducted on how these incentives and gifts affect prescribing patterns” (J Rhee). These incentives are persuading doctors into prescribing drugs that are not the most accurate to treat the problem but rather fill the doctors needs with gifts and incentives. This evidence written by Rhee demonstrates the connection between pharmaceutical marketing with incentives to physicians and how it negatively affects their prescribing patterns. In order to start veering away from these unethical practices, intervention is needed. Doctors should be required to disclose all gifts given to them by pharmaceutical companies and have it available for public viewing upon request. Both Vermont and Minnesota currently have laws regarding disclosure agreements with doctors and have proven to be successful. These states have found that these regulations are highly effective in gaining media scrutiny from the public and individuals outside of the pharmaceutical and medical world (Grande). By providing documents containing what the doctors receive and by whom they receive those incentives, patients will be able to formulate a decision on whether they believe that their physician is providing the best medical care they can offer.

While many people agree that government regulations need to be put in place, there are individuals who hold the opposing view that pharmaceutical advertising is beneficial to the public. This opposing view believes that it informs, educates, and empowers patients, encourages them to talk to clinicians, and reduces undertreatment (Ventola). However, when looking from an educational standpoint, advertisements by pharmaceuticals do not completely inform patients. Advertisements often fail to include all information, much of which is important to making a decision that could result in a lifelong addiction. In a recent study, only 26% of the advertisements for painkillers in the study were found to report the causes of the conditions or the risk factors (Frosch). Pharmaceuticals treat medicine as solely a business without informing patients completely of the risks and effects. The words of a pharmaceutical executive proved that when discussing sales; “our respiratory business is doing extremely well, as is our cholesterol business… Parts of that business are really growing strongly” (Peterson 17). Health issues are treated as a business to make the “disease” manageable not curable. These prescription drugs have led to a severe growth in addiction and part of the blame can be placed on pharmaceuticals and “the nation’s physicians, who have enjoyed the industry’s gifts as their profession has been corrupted” (Peterson 322). In an article written for Time Magazine, author Mohammad discusses the issue that pharmaceuticals have enough money to hold a $5 million spot in a Super Bowl commercial. These companies generate enough revenue by selling painkillers to support a commercial that is broadcasted to millions nationwide. They generate this revenue by producing drugs with side effects that require them to purchase more drugs to counteract the side effect. Mohammad states that “It almost feels like the drug companies want to keep their flagship product (opioids) going full steam ahead by countering a major side effect with another drug. It's certainly in the best interest of the pharmaceutical companies to keep their clients satisfied enough to continue using their products” (Mohammad). The pharmaceutical companies have no intention of curing disease or illnesses but rather have their drugs act as a band-aid that covers up the first problem but then continues to create future problems that require the long-term use of other prescriptions. As well as informing patients, supporters of pharmaceutical advertising believe that without advertisements the public would be under diagnosed and under treated. However, the opposite is currently happening with the advertisements. According to a study completed about direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, pharmaceuticals “[have] been criticized as contributing to the “medicalization” of natural conditions, cosmetic issues, or trivial ailments, resulting in an overmedicated society” (Ventola). Prescriptions are being handed out like candy. People see an advertisement on television and immediately believe that this one pill will fix all problems when, in reality, the pill may be doing more harm than good. The pharmaceutical industry is targeting every audience they possibly can in order to boost their sales and contribute to the opioid epidemic and the over-prescribed painkiller society America has become.

Not only does marketing done by pharmaceuticals affect the ethics of physicians, marketing to individuals not involved in the healthcare profession has caused Americans seem to believe that every flaw the human body has, can and should be treated by drugs. Prescription drugs have soared in marketing and sales since the mid 1990’s when pharmaceuticals realized the potential of marketing “new and improved” drugs. Drug sales in 2005 reached $250 billion on prescription drugs alone and it is noted that “Americans spend more on medicines than do all people of Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina combined” (Peterson 5). Studies have shown that “on a daily basis, prescription pills are estimated to kill more than 270 Americans- more than twice as many as are killed in automobile accidents” (Peterson 7). Prescriptions drugs are in place to save lives, and they do, however, pharmaceutical companies have risen in power and profits with propaganda and marketing schemes that do not reveal the whole truth. Prescription drugs that originally aimed to save lives and improve health have now turned in to a business that focuses only on incentives and profit. By advertising to the public, individuals believe that they need these drugs in order to live the best life. They then begin taking prescriptions, many in which can be highly addictive, and they continue to take them throughout their lives causing long term damage to their bodies (mainly their kidneys) and often addiction as well. Marketing done by pharmaceuticals to the public needs to be regulated in order for the public to know the complete truth about each drug before they begin taking the drug. The drug’s addictiveness is often overlooked since is does not cause physical damage but mental damage. When advertising to the public, all facts about the drug including both physical and mental damage need to be included for the public to be able to make an educated decision as to what they believe their body needs. By regulating marketing to the public, individuals would be able to see how severely addicting many drugs on the market are and bring down the number of patients who abuse legal prescription pills in America.

Along with the immoral advertising to the public and the incentives and gifts given to doctors, pharmaceutical companies hold control over biomedical scientists in a way that causes biased designs, testing and reports on new drugs that are published to the government, academic journals, and the public. The pharmaceutical industry was the largest funder of biomedical research in 2007 and paid almost twice as much as the federal government. It was found that “in clinical research, investigators who receive industry funding are more likely to publish results that favor a sponsor's marketing goals than are investigators who do not receive industry funding” (Fughe-Berman). With pharmaceutical funding for biomedical research, it is far more likely to see bias results that may not truly reflect the effects of the drug the company is attempting to create and patent. Along with bias results, pharmaceuticals are also participating in selective publication. Posters and abstracts can legally be published on how the company believes the drug will act in preclinical studies and case reports. If the drug does not support the goals of the commercials in the final studies, the company is not required to publish the study. People are provided false information regarding a drug prior to tests being conducted and even after the study is completed, scientists have no legal obligation to publish what the study finds or how addictive the particular drug may be. Today the world is aware of the degree of addictiveness of opioids however, when opioids such as OxyContin (a widely-known brand name of oxycodone) were introduced to the market “certain pharmaceutical companies misled the FDA about the risks of opioid dependence in an effort to sell more of the drugs…” (Gupta). The FDA approved these drugs not realizing that they were slowly introducing America to an opioid epidemic two decades later. Aside from publishing studies that only benefit a certain company, large “advancements” in medical research have been published that involve a study that does not accurately portray normal results and in reality, harms medicine. Roughly 30 years ago, a paper was published on the effects of painkillers by a doctor of the name Russell Portenoy. He conducted a study on 38 patients in 1986 that resulted in less than 1% of opioid users becoming dependent on the drug. This study led to the belief that one could be prescribed and take painkillers safely for several years without becoming addicted. This study was published to the New England Journal of Medicine and made a prominent point in history. However, the published letter failed to mention that the 1% was misrepresented. Portenoy had only used patients that were in the hospital with chronic pain and carefully monitored (Gupta). This one paragraph letter published to the New England Journal of Medicine led to the belief that patients were highly unlikely to become addicted to painkillers and further went on to the widespread prescribing patterns of opioids that we see today. The mistake of allowing pharmaceuticals to falsely advertise their products without all of the information and the incorrect publications of studies that do not accurately represent effects of pills has been a large contributor to the opioid epidemic America is currently in the midst of.

The opioid epidemic America is currently in has grown exponentially over the past decade. This country spends more money on prescription painkillers than do twelve countries combined per year. We are stuck in a society where every flaw needs immediate attention and needs to be acted upon quickly. The pharmaceutical companies have flooded the minds of Americans with the thought that everything can and should be fixed by a pill. The industry has corrupted physicians by providing incentives to sell their certain brand name drug over another drug, regardless of which one would better treat the patients. The advertisements broadcasted by the industry leads the public to believe that these prescription painkillers lead to happier days and a pain free life when in reality, they are not provided the many risk factors that may be life threatening to the patient. Pharmaceutical companies now even hold control over the production of medicine. Biomedical scientists are controlled by the industry which generates biased studies and results that often do not accurately display the negative effects of the drug. By regulating funding given to medicine by the industry, not allowing incentives to be handed out to physicians and requiring all risk factors and information to be present in public advertisements, America would be able to start to see a decline in the oversupply of prescriptions we have in the market now and lead us away from the opioid epidemic that pharmaceutical companies helped put us in. 
