Triumphant music plays as cancer patients go camping, do some gardening, and watch fireworks in , a combination of immunotherapies to treat metastatic melanoma and lung cancer. , a medicine to treat plaque psoriasis and other illnesses, show patients snorkeling and riding bikes — flashing their rash-free elbows. People with Type 2 diabetes dance and sing around their office carrels, .
Drugs now come with celebrity endorsements: Wouldn’t you want the migraine treatment endorsed by Lady Gaga, ? This story also ran on . It can be . Drug ads have been ubiquitous on TV since the late 1990s and have spilled onto the internet and social media.
The United States and New Zealand are the only countries that legally allow direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. (The European Union ’s Instagram post promoting the migraine drug was visible on the continent, noting it flagrantly violated its ban on direct-to-consumer advertising.) Manufacturers have spent more than on ads in recent years.
Last year, spenders on TV advertising were drug companies. Such promotion was banned until 1997, when the FDA reluctantly allowed pharmaceutical ads on TV, so long as they gave an accurate accounting of a medicine’s true benefits and risks, including a list of potential side effects. With those guardrails in place, few thought advertising would take hold.
But the FDA of the pharmaceutical industry, which invented a new art form: finding ways to make their wares seem like joyous must-have tr.