Trump Moves to Crack Down on Drug Advertising

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/health/fda-drug-advertising-warning-letters.html

https://archive.ph/kNlbE

Trump Moves to Crack Down on Drug Advertising
The administration is proposing a return to a 1990s-era policy that kept most drug ads off TV. That could dent the revenues of drugmakers and major networks.
By Rebecca Robbins, Christina Jewett and Dani Blum
Sept. 9, 2025 Updated 9:35 p.m. ET

President Trump signed a memorandum on Tuesday directing his administration to revive a decades-old policy that is likely to sharply restrict advertising of prescription drugs on television.

The move reflects one of the top priorities of the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has repeatedly called for a ban on drug advertising on television. The policy change threatens to dent the revenues of pharmaceutical companies.

The memorandum also stands to hit major television networks, which earn substantial revenue from pharmaceutical advertisers trying to reach older viewers.

The proposal, which would effectively reverse a 1997 policy change that opened the floodgates to a deluge of TV drug advertising, is likely to be aggressively opposed by the drug industry, which has long had the courts on its side on this issue.

Past efforts to even modestly restrict drug advertising have been blocked by the courts on First Amendment grounds. The White House said it planned to change the policy via a rule-making process.

...


https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/memorandum-for-the-secretary-of-health-and-human-services-the-commissioner-of-food-and-drugs/
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES THE COMMISSIONER OF FOOD AND DRUGS
September 9, 2025

[RandySF]

1. I don't object to that.

[walkingman]

2. I am 100% behind this - waiting for the EO.

[hatrack]

3. Sure, and he'll have details in two weeks . . .

[Johonny]

4. Television? Trump really is stuck in the 1980s

Most of America is streaming, while Trump views a world that time past decades ago.

[AZJonnie]

19. Safe bet that there's some kind of grift involved like he will sell dispensations to specific drug makers

to allow their commercials to be shown.

[Fiendish Thingy]

5. He's gonna piss off the wrong people one of these days

It just might be Big Pharma.

[Intractable]

6. Please start with Skyrizzy commercials.

Please. Pretty please.

[Silent Type]

7. OK by me, but he's still a POS.

[ImNotGod]

8. I've wanted this to happen for decades but a tRump taco order is only bait for large bribes to secure "special

exemptions" for corporations that pay.

[newdeal2]

9. There has to be another angle here

With pharma out of the picture, he and Noem the puppy killer can buy up more pro-Trump ad space for cheap.

[RockRaven]

12. The less the public know about real medicine, the more they will fall prey to snakeoil salespeople.

RFK Jr has staffed up HHS and its component agencies with people with financial interests in quack treatments.

[Orrex]

10. IIRC we can blame Clinton for this.

I hate to believe that Trump can do anything good, but if he manages to make this happen, then credit where due.

[RockRaven]

11. The US and New Zealand are the only developed countries which allow direct to consumer ads

for prescription drugs. While I do not think we ought to join the crowd just to join the crowd, I also think direct to consumer ads for prescription drugs cause a great deal of harm/cost/waste and would be glad to see them go.

HOWEVER, this move will be no panacea, coming as it is from an administration whose health appointees are disproportionately grifters in the "wellness" (i.e. snake oil and bullshit) space. Their interests in this matter lie in kneecapping the competition to their bogus treatments/solutions.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

13. The unemployment lines will be filled with laid off dancers.

[Justice Brandeis]

15. I'll take a wait and see attitude on this

Drug company advertising does indeed need to come under stricter regulation, but Trump can't be trusted to deliver that.

[TommyT139]

16. Clearly Big Pharma has been slacking on the payola.

Operators are standing by...to connect CEOs to Trump's greasy palms.

[womanofthehills]

17. Sounds like for now they just have to include all side effects in ads

Having to list all side effects of drugs in adds will make adds longer & cost more.

[Wounded Bear]

18. Please, please, please do this...nt

[misanthrope]

20. Pharmaceutical companies might redirect funds blocked from advertising

and spend it on opposing RFK Jr, and or Trump. It could end up in Democratic opponents' hands.