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Megan Nicole Pennington

COM 122 Section 27
Due Thurs. Nov. 6, 2014
Advertisement: Appearance vs. Reality and Credibility
Everyone who has watched television is familiar with advertisements for prescription drugs; most
of them follow a similar pattern. First, there is a portrayal of a persons life with a disease or handicap.
Next, the company tries to sell you a drug that appears to completely change your life for the better. This
advertising is effective despite the annoying spokesperson listing off the dozens of possible side effects at
the end of the ad. While the government closely regulates ads for pharmaceutical drugs, there remains
some amount of ambiguity, exaggeration, and advertising spin. While most consumers are aware of
misrepresentation and exaggeration in advertisements, many consumers believe that the pharmaceutics
market is clean and straightforward with no deceit. This leads to numerous consumers that buy into
prescription drugs without much analysis of whether or not the drug helps more than hurts, how
dangerous it is, and if the drug is even necessary to benefit their health. Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC
manufactures the popular drug Adderall that is used to treat ADHD. While Shire claims to have its
patients best interests at heart, the companys lack of truth and integrity in its advertising, promotion, and
education about the mental disorder and the drug prove that Shire doesnt live up to the standards one
might expect after hearing its stated goals, ethics, responsibilities, and interests.
In advertising, people can expect at least a small amount of exaggeration or ambiguous terms. For
example, many food companies promise to use only natural ingredients, but there is no standard of what
natural means; this can lead to the question: natural as compared to what? What qualifies as a natural
ingredient? While these sorts of meaningless promotions in advertisements may seem to say a lot about
the product at first, upon closer inspection, it is clear that they are saying nothing specific at all. These
tricky advertising tools are just one part of what creates the identity of a company. According to author
Frank Luntz, The company persona is the sum of the corporate leadership, corporate ethos, the products

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and services offered, interaction with the customers, andthe language that ties it all together (428).
However, not all aspects of all companies personas align. Many companies portray themselves and may
appear to be a company that is reliable, serves products of high quality, or that has their consumers best
interests in mind. Nevertheless their actions, communications, and quality of their products compared to
what they claim can sometimes prove to be the opposite of the image they portray.
In the mid 2000s, when Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC first began producing and selling its eighthour version of Adderall, the companys advertisements were targeted mainly at adults. Some of the ads
targeted mothers of school-age children with behavioral problems while other ads targeted adults. One
magazine ad, published in 2005, depicts a child with his happy mother and reads, Finally! Schoolwork
that matches his intelligence[.] family hours that last for hours[.] Friends that ask him to join the group.
The ad seems to portray Adderall as a drug that will make children get good grades in school and have
less behavioral problems. In an ad from 2008, there is a picture of a newly married couple with the wife
cut out with a giant red stamp over it that reads, DIVORCED, and underneath it reads, Because adults
with ADHD may have a lot to lose (Schwarz). Although it says in small print that there was 13%
more people divorced who claim to be diagnosed with ADHD vs. non-ADHD in a test of 500, it can be
argued that Shire is scaring adults into believing that they will get divorced if they go without treatment.
In both ads, Shire neglects to mention that several things, such as lack of sleep, usual child behavior, or
poor diet, can cause ADHD symptoms like the inability to focus and complete tasks. These ads are
misleading consumers to believe that the drug will always result in good grades, better personal
relationships, and will prevent divorce. The ad from 2005 also states that Adderall was generally well
tolerated in clinical trials and only mentions the least severe side effects of the drug (Schwarz). This is a
vague statement and causes readers to believe that the drug worked well for everyone. While this is true
for some, Adderall can cause psychological problems, heart problems, or mood swings in some patients
all of which are possible side effects that the company does not mention. Shire claims on its website that
its goal is Taking an ethical and responsible approach in the best interest of [its] patients However,
Shires language in its public advertisement is misleading and shows the company does not promote the

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drug in the interest of helping people affected with ADHD; Shires interests lie in spreading the social
anxiety that comes with the possibility of having a mental disorder and going untreated in hopes of
getting more people to become prescribed to it and buy it. (Shire - A Global Innovator).
Shire spends a lot of money on promoting their drug to both consumers and doctors. When the
eight-hour version of Adderall was released in 2002, Shire held a meeting with 70 doctors to educate
them using a PowerPoint slideshow on the benefits of Adderall to their patients. The New York Times
journalists obtained a copy of this slideshow. Alan Schwarz of the NYT writes,
Slides described side effects of Adderall XR as generally mild, despite clinical trials
showing notable rates of insomnia, significant appetite suppression and mood swings, as
well as rare instances of hallucinations. Those side effects increase significantly among
patients who take more pills than prescribed.

Another slide warned that later in life, children with A.D.H.D. faced job failure or
underemployment, fatal car wrecks, criminal involvement, unwanted pregnancy
and venereal diseases, but did not mention that studies had not assessed whether
stimulants decreased those risks. (Selling)
Shire was not able to prove this information to be true with any factual information. Alan Schwarz from
the NYT quotes Dr. Aaron Kesselheim of Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston who writes,
advertising influences doctors prescribing practices.theyll tell you that theyre giving patients
unbiased, evidence-based information, in fact theyre more likely to tell you what the drug company told
them, whether its the benefits of the drugs or the risks of those drugs. The false advertising and
misleading claims made by Shire to the doctors can be harmful to the doctors patients by depriving them
of important information and supplying them with false information about the drug. The U.S. Department
of Justice quotes a U.S. Attorney General who warns that, regarding children, "Marketing efforts that
influence a doctors independent judgment caninterfere with a parents right to clear information
regarding the risks to the safety and health of their child (Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC). On Shires

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website, it states that the company is committed to ensur[ing] our interactions with health care
professionals are appropriate, compliant, and consistent with our mission to support patients (Shire - A
Global Innovator). In Shires promotion to doctors, it deliberately disregarded the entire factor of safety
and health of their patients, revealing the company is not entirely focused on honesty and transparency
with health care professionals and patients as the company states. Shires true motive is revealed to be to
diagnose as many people as possible with the disorder and get them on the treatment by advertisement
anxiety and gloss over the health risks so they continue to buy the drug for the rest of their lives.
The misleading information Shire promoted and the false claims it made regarding its drug,
Adderall, prove that the companys motives are unethical and do not align with its depiction of itself. In
the pharmaceutical realm, this kind of deceit can prove to be dangerous to patients health and well being.
As declared by the U.S. Department of Justices Office of Public Affairs, a lawsuit was filed by an
individual on behalf of the U.S. government against Shire, resulting in the companys payment of $56.5
million to the government and certain states for the damage Shires fraud caused. The company violated
the False Claims Act with unsupported claims that Adderall would prevent poor academic performance,
loss of employment, criminal behavior, traffic accidents and sexually transmitted disease. Additionally,
Shire violated laws by promoting their drug for the treatment of conduct disorder without approval from
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A spokesperson from the agency said that the Department of
Justice will continue to hold drug companies responsible for seeking to boost profits using false and
misleading claims about [their] products Although the companys false statements were not exploited
by the Department of Justice itself, the changes resulting from the lawsuit that have been made to Shires
previously deceitful advertisements and false claims are an example of the efficiency of the regulations
enforced on false advertising and misleading information (Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC).
Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC may appear to portray itself as dedicated to the well being of its
patients and the quality of the products it manufactures, but the actions and language the company uses in
advertising, promotion, and education of its products reveal Shires bigger interests: increasing their sales
for a bigger profit in order to keep the companys investors happy.

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Works Cited

Luntz, Frank. "Be All That You Can Be: The Company Persona and Language Alignment. Language
Awareness. Ed. Eschholz, Paul A., Alfred F. Rosa, and Virginia P. Clark. 11th ed. New York: St.
Martin's, 2013. 427-433. Print.

Shire - A Global Innovator in Specialty Biopharmaceuticals. Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC, 2014. Web. 19
Oct. 2014.

Schwarz, Alan. "The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder." NYTimes.com. The New York Times, 14
Dec. 2013. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.

United States. Dept. of Justice. Office of Public Affairs. Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC to Pay $56.5
Million to Resolve False Claims Act Allegations Relating to Drug Marketing and Promotion
Practices. US Dept. of Justice, 24 Sept. 2014. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.