pic thx to david goehring flickr creative commons

For those who believe that opinion polls are proxies for temperature readings, the pharmaceutical industry could use an aspirin.

Amid ongoing turmoil over prescription drug prices, a new poll finds that 77 percent of Americans want the White House and Congress to ensure that expensive drugs for treating chronic conditions –  such as cancer, HIV, hepatitis, and mental illness – are affordable. And 63 percent want government action to lower drug prices, in general.

In fact, these were the two health care items that mattered most to the more than 1,200 adults who were queried by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The survey was conducted in mid-October, shortly after drug prices became so controversial that the issue was a hot topic on the Internet and mentioned on the Presidential campaign trail. The chatter was largely in reaction to a trend by some companies – notably, Martin Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals and Valeant Pharmaceuticals – to buy medicines and then boost price tags sky high.

Indeed, over the past two years, the entire pharmaceutical industry has been on the defensive in the wake of high prices for new medicines, some of which have caused public and private payers to complain they are budget busters.

A recent analysis found that prices rose 9.1 percent through Sept. 30 for all types of medicines, trailing the 10.9 percent increase seen in 2014, according to Truveris, a health care technology firm that tracks drug pricing, although Truveris forecasts overall price hikes to amount to 10.4 percent for this year.

Given concerns over pricing, it is not surprising that 89 percent of the survey respondents said they would like the Food and Drug Administration to oversee drug ads for accuracy and clarity before they are aired. The FDA, as you may recall, does not currently do this. Interestingly, Kaiser found this view was shared nearly equally by Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

Nonetheless, access to new treatments remains a high priority. Nearly 70 percent of the respondents want the FDA to approve a drug that is safe and effective, even if this medicine is no more effective than existing therapies. But … and this is a big but … this drops to 54 percent if the new drug is both more expensive and no more effective than the existing options.

Meanwhile, 57 percent say drug makers spend too much advertising to patients and half find the ads informative. At the same time, 62 percent of the respondents believe too much is spent on advertising to doctors. In general, 67 percent believe the pharmaceutical industry has a lot of influence over physician prescribing habits. And only 3 percent believe drug makers have no influence on what doctors prescribe.

Despite reservations about drug advertising, Americans appear divided whether there is enough regulation ensuring safety and monitoring claims made in the ads, according to Kaiser. Forty-seven percent said there is not as much regulation as needed to ensure safety, while 42 percent believe there is a sufficient amount of regulation.

At the same time, 43 percent said there is not as much government regulation as there should be to ensure that statements in ads about benefits and possible side effects are accurate and not misleading. And 45 percent said there the amount of regulation is just right. Only 7 percent believe there is too much regulation.