Trump Administration Moves to Increase Oversight of Drug Advertising
President Trump signed a memo on Tuesday directing the Food and drug Administration (FDA) to increase enforcement regarding direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisements. The administration aims to address what officials describe as lax enforcement of existing regulations.
According to senior administration officials who spoke to reporters anonymously, the memo focuses on closing a loophole that has allowed drug advertisers to avoid fully detailing potential risks within their advertisements.
Dr. Caleb Alexander, a drug policy researcher at the Johns Hopkins bloomberg School of public Health, expressed that increased scrutiny has been long anticipated. “Many clinicians and public health professionals have been wondering for years and years when something was going to be done about it,” he said.
However, experts note limitations to the administration’s power. Dr. Alexander pointed out that current laws governing drug promotion were created before the rise of social media and online health platforms. “Our laws and rules and regulations governing drug promotion were written in a different era. and I don’t think that they contemplated a world where so many Americans would be getting so much facts from social media, nor did they contemplate the presence of these increasingly powerful telemedicine and online health platforms that are undertaking direct marketing themselves,” he explained.
Officials cited a Super Bowl advertisement by a telehealth company promoting compounded weight-loss drugs as an exmaple of potentially problematic advertising, suggesting it may fall outside the scope of current regulations.Addressing such cases, Dr. Alexander stated, would likely require congressional action.
In addition to the presidential memo, the FDA is reportedly issuing a series of enforcement letters to pharmaceutical companies regarding their advertising practices.
