From: Thomas Pretlow [tgpretlow@earthlink.net]
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2002 10:16 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov; gary@commercialalert.org
Subject: adds for drugs & tobacco

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing to express my strong belief that our country has gone way
beyond acceptable limits in permitting advertisements of tobacco and
pharmaceuticals to the public.  As a physician-patient, I have had a
long-standing rule that I will not take a pharmaceutical until it has been
widely marketed for at least ten years.  As one who has witnessed many
complications of drugs, I want drugs test-flown on a wide scale before I use
them.  While I do not take care of patients directly, I advise my friends
that new drugs should be used only for very significant conditions that do
not respond effectively to older drugs.  I am continuously amazed at the
side effects that are not observed and entered into the Physicians Desk
Reference until long after the drug has been marketed widely.  The public is
not sufficiently sophisticated to interpret the adds that now appear
routinely on TV, and patients should not be encouraging physicians to
consider changing therapies because they, the patients, have been led to
erroneous judgements based on TV adds.

As one who has given a lecture entitled "The Pathology of Tobacco Users"
every year since 1969 in the three different medical schools where I have
taught, I cannot conceive how any decent politician, regardless of the
inappropriately received political contributions, could permit the kinds of
tobacco adds that are current.

Corporations are not citizens or individuals.  They should not be permitted
to advertise misleading claims that inflict harm on a public many parts of
which are not highly sophisticated in their understanding and relevant
knowledge.

This letter represents only my opinion as a citizen, not the opinion of my
employer.  I identify my employer only to make you aware that I have some
knowledge of the effects of pharmaceuticals and tobacco.

Thomas G. Pretlow, M.D.
Professor of Pathology, Urology, Oncology, and Environmental Health Sciences
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
(telephone: 216-368-8700; e-mail: tgp3@po.cwru.edu)