Some Ads Highlight Only Web Addresses So Side Effects Don't Have to Be Listed
Jump to full article: The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, 2008-08-29
Author: Alicia Mundy
Intro: Pfizer Inc. has found a way to encourage the use of its antismoking drug Chantix without detailing serious potential side effects through a commercial that doesn't mention Chantix at all.
During NBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics this month, Pfizer aired a commercial in which a middle-age woman tells the camera, "At 6:30 in the morning, I have a cigarette. And then another on my way to work." During the 60-second commercial, a voice discusses ways to break the habit and directs viewers to Mytimetoquit.com. Visitors to the site find a link to a Chantix site that contains information on the antismoking drug, including the negative side effects.
Such "unbranded product advertising" like the mytimetoquit.com spot is gaining popularity among drugmakers, which in recent months have come under renewed fire from lawmakers for the ways in which they promote drugs directly to consumers.
Under Food and Drug Administration rules, if an ad doesn't directly name the drug, it doesn't have to include the reading of possible side effects
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