Washington Focus
Prescription drug advertising: in the bull's eye again
Daniel L. Jaffe ANA
ANA fought a long and hard battle to remove outdated and counterproductive restrictions on prescription drug advertising to consumers. For years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required so much disclosure in direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising that the result was a de facto ban on the use of the broadcast media. The regulations also ensured that this type of advertising was of little use to consumers.
These restrictions, ANA pointed out, not only violated constitutional free speech protections, but also weakened the health care system...