Direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs in New Zealand: Time for a Radical Change?

Abstract

This paper deals with Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription drugs in New Zealand. This kind of advertising can be defined as the business practice of pharmaceutical companies where they promote their prescription medicine directly to consumers via mass media such as television, print, radio or in recent times the Internet. Among all industrialised countries only the United States and New Zealand allow this form of drug advertising.

This paper examines if New Zealand should change its current position towards DTCA and follow the majority of countries where DTCA is prohibited. In a first part, the paper introduces and evaluates the various existing approaches towards DTCA. Part III of the paper argues that the current regulation of DTCA in New Zealand does not provide sufficient consumer protection. Stricter regulation will be examined as one possible option, with a focus on general problems of effective regulation of DTCA. Ultimately this part concludes that a ban is justified considering the importance of health protection. The last part of the paper argues that a ban of DTCA is one step in the right direction, but further effort is needed to enhance patient’s autonomy and provide consumers with reliable health care information in the Internet.