This is pretty much on-going, eh? http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_drugs_advertising

It wasn't what you would call a casual get-together.

In February 2009, a popular New York blogger attended a brunch with fellow "frazzled moms." They took in tips from a style expert and listened to a nurse extol the virtues of Mirena, a birth control device sold by Bayer Healthcare.

The nurse was on Bayer's payroll. In a series of events organized with the help of a women's website, Mom Central, the pharmaceutical company gathered a captive audience of young mothers. It provided the nurse with a script and had the women fill out a survey before they left.

The sessions earned a stern rebuke from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In a letter to Bayer Healthcare made public earlier this year, the agency faulted the drugmaker for telling "busy moms" that using its intrauterine device (IUD) "will result in increased levels of intimacy, romance and, by implication, emotional satisfaction."

Besides hyping the product, the nurse failed to disclose potential risks. "Here you have a company hiring a third-party to invite people into a home like a Tupperware party," said Thomas Abrams, whose department oversees pharmaceutical marketing reviews at the FDA. "That was extremely, extremely concerning to us because this product has risks -- risk of infection, loss of fertility. Huge risk."

Under the Obama administration, the FDA has vowed to crack down on increasingly aggressive marketing tactics -- both online and off. But even Abrams acknowledges the agency lacks the resources to sharply curtail misleading drug ads.

Downturn or no, the pharmaceutical industry hasn't been skimping on advertising. In 2009, companies spent a vast $4.8 billion to reach out to consumers in the United States -- the only country besides New Zealand that allows direct-to-consumer advertising -- up from nearly $4.7 billion the year before, according to tracking firm Kantar Media.

To drug companies, it is all part of patient education. But consumer advocates, some lawmakers and others see the barrage of ads as a way to push medicines that people may not need as well as raise the nation's overall healthcare costs.

As media splinters into a sea of Internet blogs, on-demand television and niche publications, companies are racing to keep pace. Websites and digital technology offer powerful tools that make it easier, cheaper and quicker to target specific groups. And drugmakers are relying more on celebrities and other methods to make their products stand out.

For example, last year the FDA warned Abbott Laboratories over a promotional DVD featuring former basketball star and HIV patient Earvin "Magic" Johnson that the agency said suggested the company's HIV drug Kaletra was safer and more effective than proven.

Agency staff have also s lapped Allergan Inc for its website promoting its eyelash-boosting drug Latisse, saying various webpages did not tell potential consumers about possible risks, such as extraneous hair growth if the product touches the skin elsewhere, and downplayed possible allergic reactions.

Earlier this year, Novartis earned a warning for two websites it sponsored -- www.gistalliance.com and www.cmlalliance.com -- to promote its leukemia drug Gleevac. The FDA said although the sites never used the therapy's brand name, they clearly alluded to it and yet failed to mention critical side effects.

All told, the number of warnings the agency has sent drugmakers has ballooned, despite voluntary industry guidelines established in 2005 to help curb complaints. In 2008, under the Bush administration, the FDA sent just 21 notices to companies for violating the agency's marketing standards. Last year, it sent 41 letters to companies. Already this year, it is outpacing that effort, having issued 45 warnings through August 28.

The FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications, reviews advertisements and other promotional items before and after they run to try to ensure companies do not mislead consumers or make false claims.

Its job isn't getting any easier. "Companies have become more aggressive with their promotion, more creative," said Abrams, a former pharmaceutical salesman who spent seven years working in sales and marketing for two different companies before moving to the FDA's promotional division for the last 16 years.

The advertising universe has been transformed in other ways since his days pushing promotions in New Jersey, home to several of the nation's top drugmakers.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media networks are the new frontier in marketing, and drugmakers are dipping in like everyone else. Pfizer Inc, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca all have Twitter feeds, and some also have blogs.

Unlike the case for print and broadcast, the FDA has yet to lay out guidelines for industry to follow, though Abrams said the agency aims to release a draft later this year.

"We are developing separate guidance that are issue-specific and can apply to the various mediums used on the Internet," he told Reuters. For example, the agency will advise companies how to respond when consumers make an unprompted request for information on a drug.

The lack of guidelines remains a sore point for the industry. "FDA has continued enforcement actions without these clear standards," said Jeff Francer, a lawyer at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the industry lobby group that made the 2005 pledge to clean up ads.

In comments submitted to the FDA ahead of the expected new guidelines, drugmakers made their feelings known. Officials for diversified healthcare company Johnson & Johnson urged the agency to "keep its approach as simple and flexible as possible," in a letter this past February.

And Big Pharma has acquired some unlikely allies. Internet companies that thrive on online advertisements, including YouTube's parent Google Inc and rival Yahoo! Inc, have joined forces with drugmakers in pressing the FDA for clear standards.