Chantix Side Effects Muted with Sneaky No-Name Marketing
August 29th, 2008 laurie
Potentially deadly Chantix side effects aren’t mentioned in Pfizer’s new sneaky ads, because the drug giant has found a way to encourage the use of its smoking cessation drug through a commercial that doesn’t mention Chantix at all.
The Wall Street Journal reports that during NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics this month, Pfizer aired a commercial in which a middle-age woman tells the camera, “At 6:30 in the morning, I have a cigarette. And then another on my way to work.” During the 60-second commercial, a voice discusses ways to break the habit and directs viewers to Mytimetoquit.com. Visitors to the site find a link to a Chantix site that contains information on the antismoking drug, including the negative side effects. Such “unbranded product advertising” like the mytimetoquit.com spot is gaining popularity among drugmakers, which in recent months have come under renewed fire from lawmakers for the ways in which they promote drugs directly to consumers, the Journal reports.
Chantix has been linked to suicidal thoughts/tendencies, violent and aggressive behavior.
Under Food and Drug Administration rules, if an ad doesn’t directly name the drug, it doesn’t have to include the reading of possible side effects that can chew up expensive television time. Clever clever.
