Introduction
The only industrialized nations, which allow pharmaceutical companies to market prescription drugs to the consumers are the U.S. and New Zealand (Gibson, 2014). According to Mintzes (2012), the direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs to the consumers has become very ubiquitous in the US. The debate about the public health impact of marketing the prescription drugs to the consumers has been controversial. The supporters of this form of advertising claim that it leads to positive outcomes while its opponents maintain that it results in negative effects.
In my point of view, the marketing of drugs to the consumers is not ethical due to the harms that it causes. The pharmaceutical companies fail to abide by the principle of non-maleficence when advertising the prescription drugs to the consumers. According to Kelling & Aultman (2014), this principle of biomedical ethics reminds the pharmacist to figure out the potential harms, which might occur with any intervention. Consequently, most of the pharmaceutical companies act unethically by not considering the potential harms such as the inappropriate and unnecessary use of medicines by the consumers when marketing their prescription drugs. The consumers have
The principle of beneficence calls for the health care professionals including the pharmacists to always act in a manner that benefits the patient. As described by Chagani (2014), this principle calls for the health care specialists to weigh the benefits and risks and take decisions, which offer patients maximum benefits. Nonetheless, the pharmaceutical companies fail to abide by this principle when marketing the prescription drugs to the consumers because they recover the high advertising costs they incur through overcharging their prescription drugs. In fact, Noordin (2012) claims that the consumers are the ones who pay the expenditures on the advertisements.
As a matter of fact, the marketing of prescription drugs to the consumers by the pharmaceutical companies does not only increase the costs of drugs, but also increases the health care costs and, as a result, this hinders the patients from accessing healthcare. Advertising the prescription drugs to the consumers is, thus, unethical. However, giving perks to the nursing practitioners is ethical.
References
Chagani, S. M. I. (2014). Telling the Truth-A Tussle between Four Principles of Ethics. Journal of Clinical Research & Bioethics, 2014.
Gibson, S. (2014). Regulating direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs in the digital age. Laws, 3(3), 410-438.
Kelling, S. E., & Aultman, J. M. (2014). Promotion of ethical principles in provision of medication therapy management services. Innovations in Pharmacy, 5(1): Article 143.
Mintzes, B. (2012). Advertising of prescription-only medicines to the public: does evidence of benefit counterbalance harm? Public Health, 33(1), 259.
Noordin, M. I. (2012). Ethics in Pharmaceutical Issues. INTECH Open Access Publisher.
