The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has ruled that the drug company Pharmacia and Upjohn breached its code of practice with its advertisement for the incontinence drug tolterodine (Detrusitol).
The advertisement, which appeared in the BMJ (23 October), showed a smiling woman in a swimsuit with the caption “Freed by Detrusitol.”
In a letter to the association's code of practice authority, Charles Medawar, director of the consumer watchdog body Social Audit, complained that “the advertisement fails to reflect the important evidence relating to lack of efficacy.” In one multicentre randomised trial the drug was found to be of no greater efficacy than the cheaper drug oxybutynin, though it was better tolerated (British Journal of Urology 1998;81:801-10).
He also questioned the use of the word “freed,” quoting a table that appears on the drug's data sheet. This shows that after an eight week trial, there was no significant difference in the number of patients free of bladder symptoms on the drug compared with placebo.
Heather Simmonds, director of the Code of Practice Authority, said: “The advert overstated the totality of the data, and it wasn't balanced.” The company must now remove the word “freed” from the advertisement.
The company has also been criticised by some doctors for its incontinence awareness campaign (4 September, p 591) which seemed to come closeto “direct to consumer”advertising.