Trump Cracks Down On Big Pharma TV Ads But Does Not Ban Them

[mystery-ak]

Trump Cracks Down On Big Pharma TV Ads But Does Not Ban Them

Emily Kopp
Investigative Reporter
September 09, 2025 7:52 PM ET

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum Tuesday directing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to crack down on deceptive pharmaceutical ads on television and social media.

The FDA will simultaneously ship 100 cease-and-desist letters and thousands of warning letters to drugmakers related to deceptive advertising, administration officials told reporters.

The memo calls for the enforcement of regulations already on the books under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that ban pharmaceutical companies from leaving viewers with misleading impressions and require them to present a fair balance of the potential benefits and the full scope of risks.
“Pharmaceutical ads hooked this country on prescription drugs,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said. “Only radical transparency will break the cycle of overmedicalization that drives America’s chronic disease epidemic.”

“Drug companies spend up to 25% of their budget on advertising. Those billions of dollars would be better spent on lowering drug prices for everyday Americans,” said FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.

“This is really one of the primary responsibilities of the FDA,” one administration official told reporters.

The move falls short of a pledge that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made when campaigning for Trump in November 2024 to ban the ads altogether. Administration officials said on a call with reporters Tuesday that the action is the most aggressive one possible – an apparent reference to legal and constitutional constraints. In 2019, pharmaceutical companies sued the Trump administration on First Amendment grounds to stop a requirement that they disclose prices in drug ads.

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https://dailycaller.com/2025/09/09/trump-cracks-down-on-big-pharma-tv-ads-but-does-not-ban-them/

[massadvj]

Dicey situation. Fox News is among the biggest beneficiaries of pharma advertising. I am sure this is not sitting well with the Murdochs.

Personally, I oppose banning these ads. The policy assumes people are not intelligent enough to figure out for themselves what substances to put into their bodies. If "my body, my choice" is the acceptable paradigm for vaccines and abortions, then it ought to be the same for prescription drugs.

As someone who has studied this and spent my career in this field, I do believe these ads can have the effect of causing disease by planting subconscious fears into the minds of consumers. Nonetheless, the damage from having a government powerful enough to shut down commercial persuasion is more damaging in my mind than the ads themselves.

[mountaineer]

As someone who has studied this and spent my career in this field, I do believe these ads can have the effect of causing disease by planting subconscious fears into the minds of consumers.

I suspect the pharmaceutical companies are counting on a certain percentage of the viewing public being hypochondriac.

Yes, that's it! I have Crohn's disease! No, wait, must be psoriatic arthritis, yeah, that's it! Or maybe tardive dyskinesia. What the heck, I have 'em all. Mo' drugs, here!

[DCPatriot]

It's also almost comical listening to the litany of reported side effects to these drugs.

"Internal Bleeding...some fatal, may occur!"

"Our medication group of people suffered just 2.3% new strokes
...compared to 2.7% of our closest competitor!"

[mountaineer]

The side effect of several drugs involving the perineum ("the area between the anus and the genitals") is very appealing, too. 

[Right_in_Virginia]

Nonetheless, the damage from having a government powerful enough to shut down commercial persuasion is more damaging in my mind than the ads themselves.

The government shut down tobacco ads because of the health risks.  Can the same standard be applied to drug ads?

[rustynail]

Back door racism by putting all those black actors out of work?

[DCPatriot]

Who in the heck over age 60 would dare begin an Eliquis Regimen?

[rustynail]

Who in the heck over age 60 would dare begin an Eliquis Regimen?

Biden is on it and look what it has done for him.

[mountaineer]

The government shut down tobacco ads because of the health risks.  Can the same standard be applied to drug ads?

The difference is that there's nothing remotely healthy about tobacco. I have to think most of these drugs, anyway, have some legitimate and positive value to healthcare. But I suppose the gov't could at least require more disclaimers, less dancing in the ads.

[berdie]

The side effect of several drugs involving the perineum ("the area between the anus and the genitals") is very appealing, too. 

Yep...that one always makes me go...Huh??

There is also one that causes deafness. Possibly permanent.

[massadvj]

The government shut down tobacco ads because of the health risks.  Can the same standard be applied to drug ads?

It can and probably will be. I would be the first to admit that my life is way better without cigarette advertising and smoking banned in public places. But as a matter of principle, I opposed these things, and still do.

[massadvj]

I suspect the pharmaceutical companies are counting on a certain percentage of the viewing public being hypochondriac.

Yes, that's it! I have Crohn's disease! No, wait, must be psoriatic arthritis, yeah, that's it! Or maybe tardive dyskinesia. What the heck, I have 'em all. Mo' drugs, here!

It is a question of planting a seed and then watering it through repetition.  The pharma ad creators are masters at it. Just as one example, if you run an ad targeted to plus-50 men with the line "I keep going, and going, and going...." do you think a larger percentage of them will develop the symptoms of enlarged prostate than would be the case if there was no ad?

[Smokin Joe]

The difference is that there's nothing remotely healthy about tobacco. I have to think most of these drugs, anyway, have some legitimate and positive value to healthcare. But I suppose the gov't could at least require more disclaimers, less dancing in the ads.

Actually, I credit tobacco with killing the bacteria that were giving me identical symptoms to my Dad, who spend 6 months taking antibiotics to kill off a heliobacter pylori infection that was producing identical symptoms to my own. Only tobacco just took two weeks.
(Discovered purely by accident: the doctors were down to trying to tell me the pain in my side was "in my head" -- I fired them on the spot).

[jmyrlefuller]

The FDA will simultaneously ship 100 cease-and-desist letters and thousands of warning letters to drugmakers related to deceptive advertising, administration officials told reporters.

Ooh, a sternly worded letter! That'll stop'em. /sarc

[Kamaji]

Yep...that one always makes me go...Huh??

There is also one that causes deafness. Possibly permanent.

There’s another one where one of the side effects is limb loss.

[bigheadfred]

There’s another one where one of the side effects is limb loss.

There are many others that cost you an arm and a leg from the get go.