How are coupons for household products or office supplies different from coupons for prescription drugs?
Coupons, as a type of DTCA, contribute to the negative effects of drug marketing and represent one of its crassest forms. Coupons are a promotional vehicle normally associated with traditional consumer products. Unlike shampoo, breakfast cereal and dishwashing liquid, however, a consumer cannot just enter a store and purchase a prescription drug. Prescription drugs require that a physician or other medical professional with prescribing authority write a prescription and that a licensed pharmacist fill the prescription. As with other forms of DTCA, prescription drug coupons seriously interfere with the physician-patient relationship by inducing consumers to ask their physicians for particular drugs by name, thus injecting the improper influence of self-interested pharmaceutical marketing. They may also foster overuse of brand-name drugs at the expense of generic drugs and affect consumers’ perception of risk and benefit for the use of a drug. For more information on prescription drug co
