Ill tidings
In what sounds like a very unhealthy union, Internet giants like Google and Yahoo are teaming up with the multibillion dollar pharmaceutical industry in the US to lobby federal regulators into removing restrictions and making it that much easier to advertise and flog drugs online.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is hearing the cash-crazed pleas of scores of drug and advertising execs over two days of meetings, as it considers whether it will relax rules for online drug ads. Currently the firms are required to provide a detailed list of the product's possible side effects, as is the case for TV advertising.
The Big Pharmas have complained they can't fit the plethora of possible side-effects neatly into two line text ads, and want the government to help them do away with the bother involved in such pro consumer regulations.
Luckily, consumer advocates have stepped up to the plate by demanding that instead of succumbing to cynical efforts to restrict potential punters' information about medical products, the FDA should respond by upping its level of current enforcement, and making the pharma industry pay for that extra effort.
After all, it's not like the drug companies don't have the cash. Last year alone pharmaceutical firms splashed out over $4.3 billion bombarding the American public with medical adverts, although only a paltry three per cent of that money went towards web ads.
But of course, with money like that floating about, web advertising firms like Google and Yahoo certainly don't want to miss out on the miracle money pills, and so they too have started lobbying the FDA on behalf of the drug makers.
