DECEPTIVE AD PULLED—The drug Paxil, intended to treat social anxiety order, made headlines for side effects like teen suicide and severe withdrawal symptoms. Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline ran television ads that promised relief from shyness and self-consciousness, expanding the scope of the drug. The FDA later pulled the ad.

A recent Georgia PIRG report has challenged drug companies to stop false and misleading advertisements that could be putting people’s health at risk. According to the report, “Turning Medicine Into Snake Oil,” the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent 170 notices to 85 pharmaceutical companies for false or misleading statements and claims between 2001 and 2005.

For example, GlaxoSmithKline’s TV ads promoted Paxil, the drug that a few years ago made headlines for high incidence of teen suicide, as a treatment for social anxiety disorder. But they also, according to the FDA, suggested its use for “ordinary degrees of anxiety and self-consciousness in social or work situations.”

“Prescription drugs are powerful substances,” said Georgia PIRG Consumer Advocate Paul Brown. “Doctors need complete and accurate information to make appropriate prescribing decisions, but they’re not getting that from the drug marketers. As a result, people’s health and lives are put at risk.”

In one particularly disturbing finding, researchers learned that one set of favorable “reports” on the clinical trials of the drug Neurontin were ghost-written by a major public relations firm and rubber-stamped by a physician. Drug maker Warner-Lambert hired an advertising firm to prepare 20 such articles on the drug, which is prescribed for restlessness, anxiety and muscle spasms.

Georgia PIRG’s Brown called on the FDA to crack down on misleading drug marketing by catching misleading advertisements before they reach consumers. Georgia PIRG supports legislation that would require drug companies to publicly disclose the results of all clinical trials—so doctors can decide for themselves whether drug company sales representatives are making accurate claims.