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Comment by Cakez0r | Hacker News Reader

* Make it illegal to advertise or market any drug that requires a prescription.

Hell yah. It's not a coincidence that America is the only country that allows direct to consumer advertising of medication.

Here's another one: ban all forms of compensation from drug companies to doctors. No more bribes^Wconference trips.

The hilarious thing is that the US has the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act through which we can punish multinationals - usually BigPharma - for bribing doctors in other countries, where direct-to-customer advertising is prohibited.

False, there are three (western?) countries that allow it: USA, New Zealand, and Brazil [1]. Here in NZ, there are not very many ads on TV for prescription mediation. "Ask your doctor" is a common phrase, but I get the impression that the large majority of advertised drugs are non-prescription. (But I watch little TV and I certainly avoid watching TV ads)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-to-consumer_advertising

I didn't know about NZ. Also, I think the Brazil info is out of date.

I've seen ads (either in the US or UK) that didn't market drugs directly, didn't name any brands or anything, but was basically "If you have erectile dysfunction, go see your doctor, there may be something for you".

That sort of ad seems common for conditions they're trying to "popularize", like "restless legs syndrome", especially when the drug they're selling isn't approved for that use. Hypochondriacs go to the "official site" and learn from sockpuppets what drugs to pester their physicians about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_mongering

The argument for these ads is that many conditions are very undermedicated. People don't know they have treatable conditions and suffer needlessly.

People are not qualified to judge. If they are suffering they should see a doctor, who is qualified to determine if they have a treatable condition.

That is exactly what these ads tell people to do.

Not quite ... they tell people to ask about a certain, non-generic, drug.

What about the first amendment?

What about it? Not all speech is protected and there is a case to be made of the harm such speech poses. This is why we can't yell "fire!" in a crowded theater. Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919)

The bar for prior restraint based on content is pretty high. I believe it's "clear and present danger". You're likely to have a difficult time making the case that ads for allergy medications present a clear and present danger.

The bar for prior restraint on public airwaves is much lower. We'd be much better off if drug marketing were relegated to the shady corners of the internet for advertising.

You can almost certainly restrict it on public broadcast TV, which would be a good start. The FCC has pretty broad powers to regulate broadcast TV and radio compared to other kinds of speech. For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine#Decisions_of...

What about it? I can't show pornography on TV or slander someone on a newspaper and call freedom of speech.

I agree - this could be tricky.

One solution for restricting advertising would be to allow consumers to sue drug companies for false claims or for misinforming doctors.

No, it's commercial speech. The FDA already regulates what they can say in drug advertisements. There's not really a legal issue there.

Legally, it's not really an issue. Commercial speech can be broadly regulated by Congress.

Free Speech doesn't really factor into a huge portion of what you see from the FDA, FTC, SEC, CFPB, and hundreds of state-level organs focused on regulating deceptive business practices.

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