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Up until the end of March, 2009, pharmaceutical companies could leave out hazards and side effects of their products from internet advertising. But that changed when the Food and Drug Administration informed 14 major prescription drug makers that they must put product liability warnings on web search ads.
Our San Diego personal injury lawyers think it is about time that pharmaceutical companies are held accountable for warning their clients of the products liability that comes with taking their drugs. It will help people prepare for taking the drug and give them information to avoid personal injury to themselves.
The FDA has taken a stance that these companies’ search advertisements must include risk information in regard to each drug or they will be either rewritten or removed from the Internet. Unfortunately, it looks like the solution could be worse than the problem.
Ads will start to become more confusing and misleading than before. Instead of making new rules, regulators are trying to enforce standards created for television and magazines, ones that cannot keep up with more highly evolved Internet ads.
The pharmaceutical companies argued that it is impossible to include all the information required to inform clients of product liability due to their drugs. In actuality, what is required is simply a link promoting users to click on it if they wish to know more about most severe and frequent risks that a certain drug is known to been associated with.
Our firm’s personal injury attorneys in San Diego think this is a small step towards getting drug companies to provide the whole truth about their products. Misleading or withheld information about product liability causes personal injury and wrongful death accidents.
One worry, however, is that a large portion of drug companies make their money off of older clients who might not be as knowledgeable when it comes to the navigating the web as the advertisements’ links would need them to be. An even bigger concern is that not everyone owns a computer, so how is this information supposed to be reaching them?
Perhaps a better solution is for the FDA to provide an approved form which all drug ads in web search pages must adhere to before they are allowed on the Internet. This way, ads would go through a pass/fail procedure before any web user would be able to see it and be misled as to the risks of certain drugs.
Please contact us for a free consultation with an experienced personal injury attorney — we speak both English and Spanish — at (800) 655-6585. Click here and you may also submit your case for a Free Review. No fee if no recovery.
SENIOR PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEY & FIRM FOUNDER
Michael Pines is a former insurance company attorney who graduated from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in 1987. While he was an insurance attorney, he learned from behind the scenes how insurance companies work and how they decide how much to pay injured people. Now that he works against insurance companies, Michael’s inside knowledge has resulted in significant benefits to his clients injured in car accidents. Learn more about Michael Pines