Are makers of Androgel, Androderm, Abbvie, Axiron, and other testosterone therapy drugs selling diseases instead of medications? A testosterone lawsuit filed recently is the latest in the series of litigations highlighting the way manufacturers use direct-to-consumer ad campaigns to convince consumers about the need for testosterone therapy medications. Manufacturers have “made up” a fake disease – mislead consumers on the age-related natural decrease in testosterone citing it as a health disorder – through advertisements and forcing people to seek medications they hardly ever need. There is indeed a Testosterone Therapy Risk to those who ingest the drug.
The testosterone lawsuit argues that “aggressive marketing campaign by manufacturers encouraged men to discuss testosterone replacement therapy with their doctors and consumers and their physicians relied on manufacturers’ promises of safety, effectiveness and east of use.” A fort-five-year-old man swayed by manufacturer’s campaign went for Androgel to improve his age-related fall in testosterone levels. He had two heart attacks within a year of having the gel-based testosterone therapy. The user had no prior cardiovascular problem and he developed blood clots after six months of the gel use. Our Tennessee testosterone therapy lawyer has also come across many such stories where ads played a role in “misinforming men to go for prescriptions they didn’t need” and in causing them to bear the brunt of testosterone therapy heart attack side effects.
JAMA Commentary Blames Low-T Drug Ads Campaign
The ever increasing number of testosterone lawsuits claiming blood clot and cardiovascular side effects are being filed every month and research studies also bring into the notice the flipside of ad campaign by low-T drug makers. In 2013, a commentary in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal entitled “Low ‘T’: How to Sell Disease” made a scathing attack on the marketing practice of low-T drug makers citing how unethical selling of a fake disease drives the $2 billion annual sale of these drugs.
The report was based on the pattern of testosterone therapy sought by 11 million men and discovered that a majority of these were “convinced that they suffered from low testosterone” and used medications without any test. Their primary source of reliance on low-t drugs is “driven, in large part, by direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns.” These ads are so pervasive that many over 40 years are readily thinking that they have a little bit of testosterone and they must use testosterone therapy to prevent losing the youth and vitality.
The notable example is how AbbVie sells Androgel, the low-T drug most targeted through testosterone lawsuits. Its ads highlight impacts of falling T levels and a miracle cure with the drug. The dedicated Low-T website run by the drug maker has “an online quiz sure to make most mid-life males muse about the benefits of a testosterone boost.” Riding on this, Androgel gives AbbVie a billion dollar in revenue every year.
While making such ads, manufacturers forget that their medication is to treat clinical symptoms of hypogonadism, the condition of abnormally low testosterone, which affects only a small number of people. The ads suppress the fact that decrease in T level is natural with age and marshal drugs as the holy grail of sex, muscular body, energy, positive mood, and lifestyle enhancement. Thus healthy men using testosterone therapy are turning unhealthy due to side effects.
The commentary termed such efforts to spin the drug benefits through unbalanced presentation of ‘facts’ as “a mass, uncontrolled experiment, which invites men to expose themselves to the harms of a treatment unlikely to fix problems which they may not really have.”
Manufacturers Selling Drugs Despite Knowing Risks
The evidence of cardiovascular problems associated with low-T drugs first came into light in November 2013 a research report cited 30 percent rise in heart attack risks. Based on VA Eastern Colorado Health Care data, the JAMA report led to filing of testosterone lawsuits. This was followed by NY Times and Wall Street Journal reports claiming that drug makers suppressed safety data on the medications for about a decade. In 2009, NIH called off a trial after many patients treated with testosterone therapy developed blood clots and heart problems.
Persistent pressure by consumer watchdogs forced the FDA to announce a probe that resulted in warning by the federal regulator about “increased risk of heart attack and stroke with use of testosterone products for low testosterone due to aging.” A recent analysis in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society terms low- T drug advertising as “the mass marketing component of disease mongering of age-related declines in testosterone.”
Contact us or call on 1-800-632-1404 for evaluation of your potential testosterone lawsuit claim by our experienced Tennessee testosterone therapy lawyer.
