"Be ready against cancer, now": direct-to-consumer advertising for genetic testing.
A recent addition to the debate about the benefits and harms of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of medicines and pharmaceuticals is a growing critique of DTC marketing and sale of genetic tests. Academic and policy literatures exploring this issue have, however, tended to focus on the sale of genetic tests, paying rather less attention to the particular implications of advertising. The globalization of broadcast media and ever increasing access to the Internet mean that public exposure to advertising for medical technologies is a reality that national regulatory bodies will be hard pressed to constrain. Working through a case study detailing Myriad Genetics' 2002 pilot advertising campaign for their BRACAnalysis genetic susceptibility test for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, this paper highlights some of the diverse and often overlooked and unregulated approaches to DTC advertising, and the associated social, ethical and policy implications.
William-Jones
Bryn
B
Programmes de bioethique, Universite de Montreal, C.P. 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal (Quebec) Canada H3C 3J7. bryn.williams-jones@umontreal.ca
D000329:Advertising / Q000941:ethics* / Q000379:methods*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics*; D002170:Canada; D003256:Community Participation; D005060:Europe; D005260:Female; D019398:Genes, BRCA1; D024522:Genes, BRCA2; D033142:Genetic Services / Q000191:economics; D005820:Genetic Testing / Q000191:economics* / Q000941:ethics*; D033161:Government Regulation; D006801:Humans; D007221:Industry; D020407:Internet; D008402:Mass Media; D014481:United States