It should be illegal to advertise prescription drugs. I am 52. While I was I growing up there were no commercials for prescription drugs - only for over the counter medicine. Then things changed around 2000 and I started seeing prescription drugs being advertised during the Super Bowl. Those commercials are $1 million for 30 seconds. And now they are everywhere on tv and the internet. During that same time frame medical costs have increased dramatically. There has to be a correlation because who is paying for all the advertising ?

And the advertisers are trying to influence consumers “to tell their doctor what to write a prescription for” instead of letting the doctor use their own expertise. This undermines the doctors oath and is a conflict of interest.

“I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.”

Prescription drugs should be used because of their own effectiveness and merits, not because of a multi-million dollar ad campaign.

I am a Demand Planner (Supply Chain) for a 66 store pharmacy chain. My father was an ophthalmologist and my mother was an RN who ran the office for multiple ophthalmologists over her career. I have talked at length with my mother over this issue and we both hope someone will take the torch and run with it.