It’s never a good idea to say the quiet part out loud, particularly in a fit of panic.

Nobody seems to have informed CNN of this, alas. This week, the network published a piece about Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and a new potential suite of regulations HHS might impose on prescription drug ads on television.

The headline? “RFK Jr. wants to crack down on drug ads. That could cripple some broadcasters.”

For decades, pharmaceutical companies have shelled out big bucks to broadcasters to place ads between TV segments. But a pair of policies being considered by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could change that and leave broadcasters in financial straits.

While not an outright ban, the two policies would make it significantly more difficult and expensive for drug companies to push their products across broadcasters’ airwaves, according to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday. The policies look to either mandate that advertisers elaborate on the risks posed by their drugs — forcing ads to be longer and, therefore, more expensive — or bar drugmakers from writing off direct-to-consumer ads as business expenses on their taxes, also padding the bill, Bloomberg reported.

And you might be surprised who this benefits most. Or not.

As CNN noted in the next paragraph, the United States is an outlier inasmuch as it allows prescription drugs to be advertised on national television; most countries prohibit the practice, but American airwaves are saturated with soft-light, soft-focus, slow-motion footage of quinquagenarians with preternatural smiles doing some gardening while a soothing voiceover informs viewers that “rare but possibly serious side effects of Charlatix may include tongue hemorrhages, gangrene, foreign accent syndrome, sentient tonsils with existential crises, late-onset Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, Cotard’s syndrome, and headache. Tell your doctor about any NASCAR races you may have watched in the past 10 years, as this may lead to further bladder …” etc.

It’s not a secret that RFK Jr. isn’t exactly good friends with Big Pharma, and during the 2024 presidential campaign he talked not infrequently about banning these preposterous spots:

Let’s get President Trump back in the White House and me to DC so we can ban pharmaceutical advertising. pic.twitter.com/Qp7fj9xskU

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) November 3, 2024

While a straight-up ban on the ads may run into problems with the First Amendment and speech issues, regulating them likely won’t, or will at least meet with fewer. And it’s not just RFK Jr. or the Trump administration — or even the Republicans — that want to do away with the tax loophole that largely subsidizes these advertisements.

In April, the Daily Caller noted, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban the practice of allowing direct-to-consumer advertising to be deducted as a business expense. The bill was introduced to the Senate a month later, again by quite the bipartisan odd couple — Republican Josh Hawley of Missouri and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire — and in both cases, the legislation has been referred to committees.

Another bill, this one introduced by independent, Democratic-caucusing Sens. Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, would ban the ads entirely.

Of course, Health and Human Services could also take issue with the practice, although — as CNN noted — no formal decision has been made on the matter.

“As Secretary Kennedy has consistently emphasized, direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising must prioritize accuracy, patient safety, and the public interest — not profit margins,” Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon told CNN via a statement.

He added that HHS is “exploring ways to restore more rigorous oversight and improve the quality of information presented to American consumers.”

Why would CNN be against such a thing? Well, at least give them points for full disclosure:

Drug companies spent $5.15 billion on TV ads in 2024, a significant figure considering a recent study found that drugmakers spent almost $14 billion on direct-to-consumer ads in 2023. Despite leaner audience numbers, linear television saw an uptick in pharmaceutical ad buys in 2024, which reached $3.4 billion during the first eight months of 2024, an 8.1 percent year-over-year increase.

Almost 50 percent of those drug ads were split across news broadcasters, including MSNBC, CBS News, CNN and Fox News, according to a December report from research firm eMarketer.

Yes, at the same time that basically everyone else is trying to diversify their ad spends to move away from linear television, Big Pharma is basically saturating it — and half of that money is going toward big cable news, which just happens to be fretting about how a move away from the practice would “cripple” broadcasters while burying the fact it would only probably “cripple” on particular type of broadcaster. Guess which type!

Look: Believe in the MAHA agenda or not, it’s no secret that direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs is a mostly American phenomenon, and the people who are pretending this is an issue aren’t even pretending that it’s about anything but their own bottom line.

If these companies are effectively underwritten by big pharmaceutical companies in the first place — and at least one seems to be effectively, if somewhat obliquely, admitting that rules that make this advertising less profitable for Big Pharma would “cripple” its budget — why, exactly, should we trust them to be objective when it comes to the hand that feeds them?

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