I’m no fan of Big Pharma, but I have First Amendment concerns with this proposal.
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% on board with this!!
Completely agree. They banned tobacco from the airwaves. That’s a “drug”. Why not everything else?
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The fact that Pharm controls a large portion of the media with advertising interferes with the First Amendment. It’s one thing for them to be able to say what they want and another when money is coming into play. When they have that much buying power it prevents media from being honest about anything that can be contributed to Pharm including the possibility of medications that can cause suicidal and homicidal thoughts. It is dangerous to the public. It’s one thing if they aren’t paying but they are and that impacts the free speech of others through a coercive influence.
"Procter & Gamble was the top TV advertising spender in the U.S., at $109.3 million. Home to Gillette, Crest, and Tide, the company spent a stunning $5.1 billion in overall advertising in 2022.
“Pharmaceutical companies Abbvie and GSK were the next biggest spenders, at $81.4 million and $52.8 million, respectively. Overall, pharmaceuticals accounted for the largest share of advertising across the top 10.”
Yes! Ban!
These are not consumer products you can just go out and buy. Pharmaceutical companies are not marketing to consumers. They are paying off the networks to leave them alone.
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With literally tens of thousands of pharmaceutical products on the market, I don’t agree. Big pharma sales personnel buy lunches at Doctors’ offices every day in this country… I don’t want to only learn about a pharma product that’s being pushed by big pharma to my Doctor without my knowledge.
I think the key here is transparency rather than censorship. We have regulations in this country that demand equal time from political parties on the media. And we have disclosure laws on media. I think if television stations had to report openly and frequently on their advertising AND they had to fully report on any adverse effects, side effects (rather than some tiny words or speed reading) , AND alternatives with each advertisement, it would be more beneficial.
There are plenty of good, safe medicines on the market made by small companies that can’t compete with big pharma.
1 million %
True. But that does not make two wrongs right.
The better approach would be to correct both. Pharm is not permitted to advertise to Physicians during a continuing education event but can have booths set up outside an event. All teachers at an event must disclose any connections to any company also.
The difficulty would be for a Physician to stay abreast of new medications. It is still going to be the Physician who needs to make the clinical decisions. And that means that patients should not be making them based on a commerical either. Having too little information causes harm. That’s why Healthcare Providers must go to school for so long and take continuing education. It’s not as easy as watching a commerical. So the commercials are actually harming people by then enticing them to insist their Doctor give that medication or they will get a bad review online or complained about. That’s not a clinical decision free of Pharm persuasion either. It’s just as big of a problem.
A possible solution could be to have Physicians disclose to patients if they are prescribing a medication who bought their lunches.
"The Sunshine Law does require that monetary gifts are reported for Physicians who recieve federal payment from Medicare or Medicaid etc. But it does not prevent them.
The Sunshine Act
The Physician Payments Sunshine Act (“the Sunshine Act”), which some people think targets pharma gifts, was instead created to improve transparency regarding the financial relationships between physicians, teaching hospitals, and manufacturers of drugs, medical devices, and biologics.
Under the Sunshine Act, drug and device manufacturers must now submit data annually to the government, reporting any money paid to physicians or the monetary value of gifts. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) then makes this information available via the Open Payments Program."
As a physician who remember the days when direct to consumer ads were outlawed: two reasons this has happened:
- The lesser reason is to encourage patients to harass their doctors for a prescription. In today’s era of corporatized big medicine, doctors are in a hurry to get patients out of the room and are only too happy to comply.
- The larger reason is the control the ad dollars give Big Pharma over the media. Controlling the narrative is how Big Pharma - Big Medicine - Big Government manipulates the people in order to control them.
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These commercials air every 10 minutes back to back on every channel pumping fear into people about a health problem. These commercials need to removed or fined 1 million dollars everytime they air
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Correct. We need to move away from pharmaceuticals to a more natural means of healing.
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Bravo! There is absolutely no-need for the pushing of pharma on TV. That is a private conversation between ‘Western Medicine’ doctors and patient.
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Agree
These pharma ads are obviously a psyop to get you to think all the jab harms were probably some idiot’s side effects cuz they took that stuff advertised on TV… Come on people, we are past this.
Also what about the pharmaceuticals handing out the samples, to give the patience, just to get there sells up, it seems the Doctor’s, do this and receive kick backs from the pharmaceuticals companies the more they can sell. I am so tired of everything that’s done, there is always company’s, that can pay the biggest money to make more. With our real regard to the patience health, example, I have stage 2 kidney disease, they prescribe the medication for my blood pressure that is also harmful to my kidneys, this stuff needs to stop.
Just an FYI but you can see which doctors, NPs, PAs, CRNPs are taking money from big pharma here (MORE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS; sunshine act):
Apparently Insurance Corporations also own Pharmacies which is why Insurance Industry stock fell when announcements were made about legislation to cut out PBMs. Not Pharm stock, Insurance stock. They don’t want to pay the price of Prescriptions but they own the companies charging people for prescriptions.
"PBMs have been hit with a barrage of criticism from antitrust regulators, state and federal lawmakers, independent pharmacies and patient advocates for business practices that detractors say drive up drug costs for Americans.
The industry is highly consolidated, with just three PBMs — Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx — accounting for 80% of U.S. prescriptions. Each of those PBMs belong to huge healthcare conglomerates that own major insurers and pharmacy networks, too: Caremark by CVS, Express Scripts by Cigna and OptumRx by UnitedHealth."
“PBMs have manipulated the market to enrich themselves — hiking up drug costs, cheating employers, and driving small pharmacies out of business.”
What I am wondering, is how many people run off their couch and go buy these drugs? Or how many are actually going to their doctor (that they only see for 5 seconds per visit) and say " hey I saw this commercial on tv…"? Or are the doctors pushing from the office or prescribing without a full assessment, because they get paid if they push these drugs! Like in the commercials, people lose vision, vomiting, diarrhea, kidney failure and even “potential death”… and people do not get healthier from these drugs, they get sicker!
THEY MUST BE STOPPED!
PS another question; is how many people on heart and stroke meds died of heart attack or stroke?
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for this concern to be genuine, you will need to agree to ban ALL “fine print” and “speed-narrated disclaimers” to begin with…
and then, to offer a clear and hazard-free way to respond to all those false claims (not an actual patient/a paid actor/etc.) presented as “clinically proven results” to be the same way publicly; or, at least to mandate to provide some reference to those “clinical studies”, which, as the latest covid-scare-mongering clearly showed, do not exist mostly