A Wall Street Journal story today looked at controversy surrounding the marketing of a new test for a rare genetic factor in breast and ovarian cancer. (The New York Times had a similar piece.) Some people are concerned ads promoting the test will prompt too many women to spend money and worry needlessly because the problem is rare and the test imperfect.
What is the company's responsibility here? They're trying to turn a profit. Should they heavily market the product, regardless of the concerns? Who are all the stakeholders (people with a specific interest)? Who is responsible for relaying information about the rareness of the gene or potential problems with the test? People who are selling it? Patients who use it? The government? The media?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Breast Cancer and Advertising
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2 comments:
Doctors should be made aware of the test. Then doctors and patients can decide together what the right course of action is. Marketing medicine to the general public is folly.
I have been disturbed by the augmentation of pharmaceutical commercials in the last couple of years. We live in a nation where at every turn of the corner, someone, who can profit from your hysteria, is telling you that, oh, say, dry itchy skin may be a sign of leprosy, so, "contact your physician immediately." This is obviously an exaggeration and joke, but what I'm saying is that these ads are creating a hypochondriac nation. What if that dry flaky skin is due to the changing seasons? Soon enough, despair leads to irrationality, and people waste money in a country without universal health care. So, I think that this breast cancer deal is something better left to the privacy of the doctors office.
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