Health Affairs November 20, 2025
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants the United States to limit pharmaceutical ads to consumers, citing concerns that advertising leads to increased use of prescription drugs.
This is a laudable first step to cracking down on pharmaceutical marketing. Certainly, exposing people to ads increases demand for targeted products. One survey found that 1 in 10 adults were prescribed a specific drug after seeing it in an advertisement and asking their doctor about it.
Direct-to-consumer advertising is associated with increased prescription drug use and drug spending, increasing demand for clinically inappropriate, more expensive versions of medications. For example, pharmaceutical companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year promoting newer blood thinners on television, even...
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