Good Idea … Bad Idea

Are we only one of a few countries that allows pharmaceutical advertising on television? If you were not aware, in only New Zealand and the in the USA is pharmaceutical advertising allowed on television.
When I was in practice, I thought that this type of drug advertising was a bad idea. A bad idea? For whom? Certainly not for the drug makers, but rather a bad idea for the patients to be the first on the block to be taking these new drugs. (It was always my modus-operandi to wait on prescribing these new drugs until the experiences of others proved or disproved their effectiveness, and demonstrated their side-effects.) The drug advertising caused patients to implore their physicians to prescribe these expensive new drugs, which for the most part were only partially paid for by the patient.

I bring this up now because of what RFKJr has in mind.
From Townhall:
“One of Kennedy’s first orders of business would be to target pharmaceutical advertising, in which prescription drugs can be advertised directly to consumers or direct-to-consumer (DTC). The United States and New Zealand are the only countries permitted to do this. As part of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) priorities, the former Democrat said he would issue an executive order banning pharmaceutical advertising on television.”
Still from Townhall:
According to an analysis, Big Pharma would “almost certainly” see their drug sales take a hit from a DTC ban because the return on investment for the ads is significant, with “estimates ranging as high as 100-500 percent, depending on the drug”
From the Daily Caller:
“Spending on DTC pharmaceutical advertising in the United States ballooned to more than $7 billion in 2023, with ad buys on weight loss and diabetes drugs surpassing $1 billion for the first time.”
In my opinion another good idea from JFKJr.
12/4/24