[Drug advertising to the general public: conceptual parameters of a risk producer practice]

This article analyzes some concepts relating to marketing, advertising, medications, regulation and manipulation. It discusses ethical and health surveillance parameters of drugs advertising for the general public. The focus of this work is the analysis of contradictions from a conceptual point of view between the practice of pharmaceutical advertising as a tool for the increase of sales and the conquest of markets versus the policy of rational use of medicines. Academic studies and monitoring of drugs advertising conducted by the National Health Surveillance Agency show that the contents of the advertising pieces oriented towards the general public overestimate the - sometimes dubious - qualities of their medication, focusing almost exclusively on the benefits and put them in a central position in the therapeutic process. They also fail to mention the risks inherent in their use. Rather than focusing on regulatory proposals aimed at creating constraints to this practice, this article discusses the impossibility, considering the interests of public health, of the coexistence of marketing with the policies for the correct, rational and safe use of drugs.