Pfizer to sponsor European impotence awareness campaign

Pfizer, the manufacturer of sildenafil (Viagra), is to launch a Europe-wide “disease awareness” campaign, focusing on treatments for erectile dysfunction without naming its product. The advertising of prescription drugs directly to consumers is banned in the United Kingdom, but pharmaceutical companies are testing the limits of this ban. Last year a television commercial about incontinence appeared during prime time. The commercial was funded by Pharmacia and Upjohn, manufacturers of the incontinence drug tolteridone (Detrusitol), and it carried the company's name and logo (4 September, p 591). In the United States, similar disease awareness campaigns were followed in 1983 by a removal of the ban on “direct to consumer” advertising. The US pharmaceutical industry now spends over a billion dollars a year on such promotion. Pfizer recently funded a Valentine's Day impotence radio and press campaign in the United Kingdom, in conjunction with the Impotence Association and the Men's Health Forum. Ann Craig, director of the Impotence Association, said: “We rely on funding from the pharmaceutical industry, and we thought that this campaign would be the best way of educating people. Pfizer might have their name on the ads, but callers [to the association's helpline] get impartial advice from us.” Although Pfizer admits that it is looking for new promotional opportunities in Europe, it also believes that its campaign will help to destigmatise impotence. But some patient representatives are uneasy about the increasing involvement of drug companies in these campaigns. Clara Mackay, senior policy researcher at the Consumers' Association, said: “The Consumers' Association questions whether it is appropriate for drug companies to lead these campaigns” (22 January, p 207). © 2000 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.