President Trump went after pharmaceutical companies Tuesday by accusing them of intentionally concealing dangerous side effects when marketing their drugs on TV and social media.
He sent roughly 100 cease and desist letters and thousands of warning letters to companies about their advertising.
He also granted broad authority to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary to rein in the companies and their social media influencers.
Among the measures pharmaceutical companies can take are increasing the amount of information about risks associated with the medicine in advertisements and actions to “ensure truthful and non-misleading information in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements.”
The president hardened the government’s stance against Big Pharma with a proclamation he signed Tuesday in the Oval Office. He did not add new enforcement action but ordered the government to more stringently ramp up enforcement of existing regulations covering drug commercials.
“Our goal is to ensure that patients have proper information about drugs that have potential harms,” a senior administration official said. “I think people are seeing ads sometimes not even realizing that they’re pharmaceutical ads.”
The White House declined to say which companies or influencers would receive the letters, but the official referenced a weight loss drug commercial that ran during the Super Bowl and drew the ire of senators on both sides of the aisle.
Hims & Hers, a telehealth company, faced scrutiny from Sens. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, and Roger Marshall, Kansas Republican, for an ad promoting the active ingredient in the weight loss drug Ozempic, but not the drug itself. The two senators said the TV ad “risks misleading patients by omitting any safety or side effect information.”
Under Federal Trade Commission guidelines, Hims & Hers did not have to provide side effect information because it did not advertise a specific drug or medication. Instead, it urged consumers to consult with a doctor, which was consistent with FTC regulations.
Drug advertising aimed at consumers has exploded since the FDA relaxed its policies in 1997. The loosening of restrictions allowed pharmaceutical companies to boast of health claims while disclosing only a drug’s “most important” health risks. Before the policy change, drug companies had to disclose a lengthy list of possible side effects or avoid identifying the purpose of the drug in the first place.
However, enforcement of those guidelines has slacked in recent years. The FDA typically sends roughly 100 letters yearly, taking drug companies to task for their advertising. However, in 2023, the FDA sent only one such letter and did not send any last year, according to the White House.
“There are also regulations that speak very clearly that an ad must present a fair balance of information … but despite these regulations, enforcement has been increasingly lax over recent years [compared with] in the past when ads were far less frequent,” the official said.
Prescription drug ads account for hundreds of billions of dollars in advertising dollars spent each year. Through this summer, prescription drug brands accounted for 24.4% of ad minutes across evening news programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, according to data from iSpot, which tracks television advertising.
The largest spenders include AbbVie, which spent $377 million on ads promoting the anti-inflammatory drug Skyrizi, and Novo Nordisk, which spent $263 million advertising Wegovy, a weight loss medicine.
Recent studies have shown that pharmaceutical companies can generate five times as much as they spend on commercials, which creates a financial windfall for television networks.
It’s unclear how much authority the Trump administration has to rein in those marketing campaigns. Drug companies have argued that their commercials are protected under the First Amendment.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry trade group, has resisted proposals to ban direct-to-consumer advertising by citing its “guiding principles” for drug promotion.
The guidelines say the ads must serve the public interest by increasing awareness, educating consumers about diseases and their treatment options, and encouraging people to talk with their doctors.
Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly called for an end to prescription drug advertising. While running for president, Mr. Kennedy vowed to issue an executive order banning pharmaceutical commercials from television. He argued that Americans take too many prescription drugs and said the industry spends too much on influencing communities.
“We’re one of only two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers,” Mr. Kennedy said in a video he posted on X last year, referencing the U.S. and New Zealand. “Everybody agrees it’s a bad idea.”
In June, Sens. Bernard Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, both independents, introduced a bill prohibiting pharmaceutical companies from advertising their drugs directly to consumers.
Under the legislation, any promotional communications targeting consumers, including through television, radio, print, digital platforms or social media, would be banned. It would apply to all prescription drug commercials.
“The American people don’t want to see misleading and deceptive prescription drug ads on television,” Mr. Sanders said at the time. “They want us to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and ban these bogus ads.”
Sens. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, and Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Democrat, proposed a bill to end drug companies’ ability to deduct consumer drug advertising as a business expense.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.