Consumers can directly buy alcohol and tobacco, they cannot buy prescription drugs directly. If there is a problem isn't the primary culprit the prescriber?
If consumers can't even buy these drugs, why do the direct marketing at all? Are you trying to suggest the consumer doesn't have much weight in the prescribing decisions of their doctors?
Clearly the pharmaceutical companies think there's a strong reason to directly market these drugs to consumers even if they can't directly purchase these drugs. The ads almost always say "ask your doctor about..." not "think about prescribing x to your patients..." If these ads didn't do much the industry wouldn't be spending billions of dollars on them.
>If these ads didn't do much the industry wouldn't be spending billions of dollars on them.
Thats speculative. Companies spend exorbitant amounts of money on things they lose money on all the time. What's not speculative is consumers cant buy the drugs themselves. They might ask doctors about it, but if the doctors are misprescribing that's on them or their training and not the consumer.
vel0city|7 months ago
Clearly the pharmaceutical companies think there's a strong reason to directly market these drugs to consumers even if they can't directly purchase these drugs. The ads almost always say "ask your doctor about..." not "think about prescribing x to your patients..." If these ads didn't do much the industry wouldn't be spending billions of dollars on them.
kongolongo|7 months ago
Thats speculative. Companies spend exorbitant amounts of money on things they lose money on all the time. What's not speculative is consumers cant buy the drugs themselves. They might ask doctors about it, but if the doctors are misprescribing that's on them or their training and not the consumer.