The study will analyze how certain flashy images featured in these ads distract consumers from warnings about a drugs' potential risks.
The announcement, posted Tuesday to the Food and Drug Administration's Web site, comes a week after a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested the agency's drug-ad enforcement has steadily declined.
The FDA will study 2,000 people and see if the audio warnings about potential side effects are overruled by the positive impression of products during the television advertisement.
Drug companies are legally bound to present a balanced picture of a drug's benefits and risks in promotions in the advertisement. However, many critics allege that the images of happy people overshadow audio warnings about possible complications.
Associated Press quotes Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the advocacy group Public Citizen as saying: "If advertisers were really interested in getting information about drug risks out, they'd show pictures of those problems, but you almost never see that."
The FDA sent 21 citations to drug companies last year for problems with consumer-directed ads, compared with 142 in 1997. According to a notice posted on FDA's Website Tuesday, "a study is needed on whether some ads simply distract consumers from carefully considering and encoding risk information."
Warning that the repetition of language about risks in text format could help reinforce warnings, the FDA also plans to study how text on the screen can focus or divert attention from audio warnings.
