Direct-to-Consumer Cardiovascular Disease Screening

Direct-to-Consumer Cardiovascular Disease Screening

Public Citizen has engaged in a campaign against companies that promote and provide inappropriate direct-to-consumer cardiovascular disease screening tests. One such company is Winter Park, Fla.-based HealthFair. The company — and its hospital and medical institution partners — peddles inexpensive cardiovascular disease screening packages to people without identifying who has relevant risk factors that would make each of the screening tests medically appropriate. The company’s programs are unethical and much more likely to do harm than good. Public Citizen has repeatedly urged hospitals and medical institutions partnered with HealthFair to sever their relationships with the company. We have also asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the company’s misleading advertising materials which make unsubstantiated claims about the medical benefits of its screening packages and omit information about the risks of adverse health-related outcomes and financial harms that may result from the screenings.