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Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

Public advertisements for prescription-only drugs should qualify as a form of disinformation/misinformation, as the reason they are prescription-only is that the involvement of a trained professional who has detailed knowledge of the patient's specific history is absolutely required to determine whether or not the drug is appropriate for that patient's condition.

Even direct marketing to physicians is somewhat questionable, except for the distribution of the results of clinical trials and peer-reviewed medical journal articles on the efficacy of drugs, and even these can suffer from conflict-of-interest if the research reports are being generated with funds from the pharmaceutical entity that will benefit from increased sales of those drugs.

Most countries ban social media / cable television / print media etc. advertisements of prescription-only drugs for these reasons.

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"Most countries" is an understatement. Advertising prescription drugs to the public is allowed in exactly two countries – New Zealand and USA.

While I agree with you, this blog post is talking about illegal products, like MDMA, meth, guns, etc where the avenue to purchase is Telegram.

Have you at least skimmed the article? It is not about prescription drugs.

Drugs are drugs, as the prescription opiate circus priming of the pump demonstrated. Purdue Pharma marketing campaigns created hundreds of thousands of addicts who later turned to the illegal heroin / fentanyl market when they lost access to their prescription suppliers.

I think you give doctors too much credit here.

I will say that from direct family and friends experience, a lot of family doctors are not aware of everything that's out there, particularly older doctors who may not be keeping up with new developments, and even more specifically women's health advancements..

Do your own research and find products or drugs that might work for you and then bring that to your doctor for a conversation about whether or not it could work for you.

That's where the marketing comes in for the public. Yes it works for the drug companies too, but if there was some law that meant no one could advertise or talk about these, we would be counting on our doctors to be always aware of all the newest things, and that's just not the reality.

If you sit around waiting for your doctor (who has hundreds, maybe thousands of patients) to bring all the right solutions to you, you're not going to get the best care you can.

So yeah, I agree there's challenges with marketing these products, but it's not a clear cut situation.

I'd love to hear what an actual M.D. thinks about those commercials begging the general public to "ask your doctor about FooBarzin!!" After the COVID fiasco, I'm highly skeptical of lay people's ability to dO tHeIr OwN rEsEaRcH about medicine.

I feel like, as a computer professional, if someone came up to me and said "A really loud commercial told me that I need an app with AI and Blockchain in it! Can I pay you to write one for me?" I'd be... annoyed?

I think the answer is as always nuanced. There are good/proactive/available and bad/lazy/overworked doctors, just like there are smart and less smart lay people..

Some people do good research, some people do bad research. Generalize at your own risk I guess.

All I know is that when it comes to my own health, I don't leave things only in the hands of my doctor. If I can bring research or information - or even just questions about potential treatments I may have seen advertised - to the table about my own situation, why wouldn't I?

I absolutely trust their professional capacities, but I certainly don't assume they are able to give me dedicated attention or put in the research I can if there's something I need to sort out.

I know for a fact I am one of thousands of patients at my local clinic, so I am realistic about the level of care I receive. You may be in a better situation than me though.

> the reason they are prescription-only is that the involvement of a trained professional who has detailed knowledge of the patient's specific history is absolutely required to determine whether or not the drug is appropriate for that patient's condition

I have a bridge to sell you.

as long as it can't be acquired without a prescription I don't see the problem in letting people know that potential remedies exist

Yeah let's continue weaponizing "misinformation" to broadly apply it to what we don't like. If someone is selling something illegally online, there are already laws for this.

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