Hasta La Creative!

Even worse than ads for prescription drugs are advertisements for medical devices, experts told lawmakers today. They told a Senate Aging Committe that ads for artificial knees, heart devices and implants require restrictions.

Even though advertising for medical devices doesn’t come close to magazine and TV ads, which count for $5 billion in spending last year alone, several of the large device companies are advertising just like the big pharmaceutical big wigs.  Medical device advertising via TV and Internet accounted for about $193 million last year.

Kevin Bozic, a board director of the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons, says that unlike pharmaceutical drug ads, these ads aren’t required to disclose risks of their products, which can lead to overutilization of “inappropriate and costly, unproven technologies.”