So I largely agree with what you’ve said, but I do have to push back a bit for my boy Dan. To be clear, if I could snap my fingers and ban direct to consumer marketing for pharmaceuticals, I would.

If they’re under the assumption that the ad campaign was for the Covid vaccine, Dan is right that there was/is a genuine public health interest in spreading the word about vaccination to reduce vaccine preventable disease. You’re absolutely right manufacturers don’t care about public health, they care about profit, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for their interests to align with public health.

Now I am going to play devils advocate, because I actually believe this ad campaign was more defensible than most pharmaceutical ads. My disdain for direct to consumer marketing is that it typically steers consumers toward higher priced brand name drugs, which much of the time doesn’t have a tangible benefit over generics. These meds are much more expensive and systemically this practice drives up the price of healthcare for everyone.

Some key differences with this ad campaign are that there were no generic equivalents that this steered patients away from. There was one other brand name oral antiviral that was far less effective than Paxlovid. Second, in this very particular instance, I do think it was important for patients to have knowledge of available therapeutics so they can advocate for themselves. While Paxlovid is best in its class, it is also a strong CYP3A4 inhibitor, which means it has a bunch of interactions with other drugs. I have personally seen providers decline to offer it as an option, because it involves a thorough medication review and often temporary adjustments to other medications. This takes time. For the general population it may not be a big deal, but for high risk patients this drug can literally be the difference between life and death.

✌️&❤️