The Trump administration’s crackdown on pharmaceutical ads is a welcome step toward lessening Big Pharma’s influence over conversations between patients and their doctors.

Americans are among the few people in the world bombarded with advertisements for medications most of us don’t need — New Zealand is the only other country that allows direct-to-consumer drug advertising. These policies have given pharmaceutical companies significant influence over consumer behavior when it comes to health.

The executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week is an attempt to force these companies to be more transparent about the side effects of their products — and hopefully draw necessary attention to the increasingly insidious ways the industry reaches consumers. But the order is meaningless without tough enforcement. Let’s hope the Food and Drug Administration, already struggling under the weight of massive layoffs, has the resources and leadership to follow through.

The president isn’t asking for an all-out ban, but is instead reinstating 1990s-era regulations that required companies to spell out the often comically long list of possible side effects associated with their products. Those guidelines were loosened in 1997, when the FDA said companies could instead summarize the main side effects and direct the public to other sources for more information.

Pharma was quick to take advantage of the softened rules. Spending on ads has ballooned, reaching about $10.1 billion in 2024, according to MediaRadar. That’s made the industry’s money vital to the media ecosystem: Television networks take in roughly half of the total direct-to-consumer (DTC) ad budget.

Yet numerous studies have highlighted the way this advertising can influence — too often, not in a good way — which medications consumers choose, especially older Americans. The effect was so striking early in the regulation shift that in 2015 the American Medical Association called for a ban on DTC advertising of pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

Research shows the drugs being pushed often offer minimal benefit. A 2023 analysis of direct-to-consumer ads run between 2015 and 2021 found that two-thirds featured products that were considered to have low therapeutic value, meaning they offered little improvement over existing (and often cheaper) medications. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies spent nearly $16 billion during that period hawking those low-value products.

Another 2023 study similarly found that companies spent the most on products that offered the least benefits, with researchers hypothesizing that this spending helped drive patients to ask for products their doctors would have been less likely to prescribe. Given this, it’s worth asking whether these ads should be required to include not only comprehensive information on their side effects, but also an explainer on their relative worth compared to other products.

In announcing its change in strategy, the FDA gave a nod to the research. “For far too long, these ads have distorted the doctor-patient relationship, and have created artificial demand for medications, regardless of their clinical appropriateness,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said in a social media post. Makary added that the agency is sending enforcement action letters to roughly 100 drug companies, and that thousands more will be put on alert that the agency is keeping close tabs on their practices.

He said that online pharmacies, “who have increasingly been promoting drugs with no mention of side effects at all,” have also been put on notice. That seems to be part of a broader agency plan to close the “digital loopholes” in DTC ad regulations — and there are many gaps in the rules that can be exploited.

Our exposure to drug options has moved far beyond the commercial breaks during the evening news and the radio spots during an Uber ride. Now we hear about products in our Instagram feed when celebrities we follow endorse them; from telehealth companies or online pharmacies pushing treatments to improve sexual function; and through influencers who offer testimonials — sometimes paid, sometimes not, a distinction often unclear to the casual scroller — about products they claim improve their health. Sure, many of us can sing along with Novo Nordisk’s jingle, “Oh, oh, oh Ozempic,” but I suspect most of us first became acquainted with the drug not through the ad but by noticing a celebrity’s dramatic body transformation or following a stranger’s weight loss journey on TikTok.

Wrangling all of that will be a heavy lift.

Last week’s action by the administration is step in the right direction, but the details of what it entails remain unclear. For example, Makary has not yet made public any of the letters being sent during this early crackdown, making it hard to assess what the FDA’s actions actually mean for companies — or how easily any changes can be enforced. Moreover, the office responsible for oversight of drug advertising was gutted in the spring layoffs at the agency, and key leaders subsequently resigned, leaving the question of whether it even has the capacity to stay on top of, let alone crack down on, bad actors.

And, of course, Big Pharma lawyers surely have been reviewing the First Amendment in preparation for legal battles over any restrictions.

Still, some movement in this area is welcome — a push further toward a ban would be even more welcome. In the meantime, the attention to the topic should serve as a timely reminder to consumers that their doctor is the best source of information on what they do and do not need to improve their health.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News.

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