Drug-makers spend nearly $5 billion a year to make sure you’re hearing about their products – but you might be surprised at how they’re delivered to you.
See also:
- Drug marketing by the numbers
- Paying celebrities to shill your drugs
- How to turn a condition into a disease by “selling sickness”
- Drug watchdog seeks tattle-tales to bust bad ads
- How Big Pharma spends $20 billion a year on marketing their drugs to you
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The Ethical Nag 
In Australia we do not have ads for drugs on TV.
When we were in the USA a few years ago I was amazed at how many pharma ads there were. Even coupons in the airline magazine offering first two weeks free treatment.
I find myself conflicted because it is good for consumers to have information but if the information flow is one sided then it is worse than not having any.
Clearly the advertising must work or else they wouldn’t spend billions on marketing
We don’t allow these Direct To Consumer ads here in Canada either (only two countries do allow them: New Zealand and the U.S.) There are sound reasons that these ads are illegal in the vast majority of countries worldwide – they are not “informational” at all. Purely designed to increase drug sales.