None of which has anything to do with the mercenary and unethical practice of marketing prescription drugs to consumers. That such intense marketing has become part of the “R&D for the most profitable new drugs” is to the US’s shame.
the only recent change is some companies voluntarily agreed to not market new drugs right away. Can’t recall which ones did that.
Between Big Pharma or No Pharma, there’s probably an argument to be made that No Pharma is worse for the customer.
Pharmaceutical companies employ and are run by people who went into the business to help people. It seems reasonable to assume that if they’re spending money on advertising, it’s an economic necessity to keep the business going, rather than out of a desire to wreak havoc on humanity.
They seemed to do very well profit wise before they ran TV ads.
Too, this is not a case of “marketing vs. not marketing” in the sense that a product only sells if it’s rammed in people’s faces, yadda yadda.
This is a case of completely unethical marketing that bypasses the evaluating and prescribing physician to make patients demand new, often expensive, certainly high-profit drugs when they have little or no expertise in choosing an appropriate treatment. It’s not too far from ads aimed at children telling them to steal money from daddy’s wallet to buy the product.
Pharm has no business directly marketing to consumers, as most countries understand.