Dr. Benjamin Davies has responded to advertising claims that recently ran in the Sunday New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker with an article in Forbes entitled “Prostate Cancer Advertising: Lies And The Damn Lies (Part 1).”
“I have a rating system for prostate cancer advertisements based on two self-evident tenets. First, cancer advertising should be scrupulously true and evidence based. Second, cancer patients are uniquely vulnerable to “hopeful” advertising (or “hopeium”) since often they face devastating odds of survival. We should all – collectively – shun advertisers that take advantage of these patients,” he wrote in the first of several articles. “I have no gripe with advertising your cancer care – just be horribly honest.”
Dr. Davies is associate professor of urology and director of the urologic oncology fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. You can see the advertisements and read his articles here.
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