FALSE AND MISLEADING ADVERTISING
(Prescription Tranquilizing Drugs)
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1958
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
LEGAL AND MONETARY AFFAIRS SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS,
Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a. m., in room 1501 House Office Building, Hon. John A. Blatnik, presiding.
Present: Representatives Blatnik (chairman), Hardy, Mrs. Griffiths, Meader, and Minshall.
Also present: Jerome S. Plapinger, counsel; Eric Weinmann, associate counsel; Curtis E. Johnson, staff administrator, and Elizabeth Heater, clerk.
Mr. BLATNIK. The Legal and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee will please come into public session.
The hearings today resume the subcommittee's inquiry into the activities of the Federal Trade Commission in the control of false and deceptive advertising of medical preparations. Our attention to date has been directed to advertising of proprietary preparationsthat is drugs sold directly to the public.
In this series of hearings our interest is focused on the advertising of drugs directed to the medical profession-particularly the advertising of tranquilizing drugs.
It is generally accepted that the medical profession, by virtue of its extensive scientific and medical training and experience is a highly sophisticated audience not easily misled by questionable advertising. However, we are informed by some physicians that in the last 20 years, and especially in the last 10, a virtual revolution has occurred in the drug field with the advent of hundreds of new and potent drugs for the treatment of human ailments. They contend that it has become increasingly difficult for the physician to keep abreast of the nomenclature and new drug developments in these many fields.
Traditionally the medical profession and the drug manufacturers have comprised a joint effort in the fight against disease-the physicians applying evaluating the drugs manufactured by the drug industry. In this joint activity a great responsibility rests on the manufacturers to make their advertising and promotional literature as informative and objective as possible. Its merchandising standards must be those of the laboratory not of the market place. It appears that there have been departures by some drug firms from this plane. Their advertisements on occasion have been something less than scientific documents to guide the physician.