Missing the forest for the trees
Why is it that when the FDA does decide to go after a pharmaceutical company, it almost always misses the forest for the trees? The latest example occurred just a couple of months ago, when the agency cracked down on GlaxoSmithKline for its marketing campaign advertising the prostate drug Avodart. The FDA's complaint centered around what it called "misleading" information portrayed in television commercials for the drug. Specifically, they took issue with one particular line in the ad, which states that "other medicines…don't treat the cause because they don't shrink the prostate." According to the FDA, this claim is false, because competing Big Pharma giant Merck's prostate drug Proscar also shrinks the prostate. They also point out that the imagery used in the commercial (a large model planet which is replaced by a much smaller one) gives consumers an exaggerated perception of Avodart's effects. If you ask me, all this nitpicking glosses over the big picture, which is that NEITHER drug is your best option for prostate health. I mentioned the risks associated with Proscar last week in the 4/16/09 eTip (subject line "When push comes to shove"). While Avodart hasn't been associated with the same prostate cancer findings associated with Proscar (uncovered by the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial), it does share many other side effects with its cousin, including decreased sexual function, breast enlargement, and possibly serious allergic reactions. As I mentioned last week, there are much better -- not to mention safer -- ways to shrink an enlarged prostate. To learn more about Dr. Wright's recommendations for treating this condition, Nutrition & Healing readers can refer back to the report "New Secrets for Potency, Vitality, and Prostate Health" that you received when you began your subscription. If you don't still have your copy, you can download and view the report for free by visiting www.wrightnewsletter.com and logging on to the Archives with the username and password listed on page 8 of your most recent Nutrition & Healing issue. Once you've reached the Archives page, scroll down to the "Free Library" section, at the bottom of the page and click on the appropriate title. Source:
"FDA calls Glaxo ad for prostate drug 'misleading,'" The Baltimore Sun (www.baltimoresun.com), 2/27/09 | 
