Senators introduce bill to ban direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads

By lauraharris // 2025-06-16

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Senators Bernie Sanders and Angus King introduced the End Prescription Drug Ads Now Act, which would ban all direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising across TV, print, digital and social media.
Since the FDA relaxed advertising rules in 1997, pharmaceutical companies have spent billions promoting drugs. In 2024 alone, AbbVie and Novo Nordisk spent over $600 million on ads for Skyrizi and Wegovy.
Critics argue that these ads exaggerate benefits, understate risks and pressure doctors to prescribe expensive brand-name drugs.
The pharmaceutical industry, through PhRMA, defends advertising as a way to educate the public and encourage doctor-patient conversations about treatment options.
The bill echoes calls from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has labeled U.S. drug advertising laws harmful and misleading, intensifying bipartisan scrutiny of pharmaceutical marketing practices.

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME) have proposed a new bill that would ban all direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which relaxed its rules around televised drug marketing in 1997, allowed pharmaceutical companies to list only a drug's "most important" health risks in commercials, helping spawn a booming market in pharmaceutical advertising. According to data from iSpot, an ad-tracking firm, prescription drug brands made up 24.4 percent of all advertising minutes across major U.S. evening news broadcasts on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC this year through May. In 2024, AbbVie spent $377 million advertising Skyrizi and Novo Nordisk poured $263 million into promoting weight-loss drug Wegovy. Drugmakers have long defended their ads as tools for public health education. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), an industry trade group, claimed its advertising guidelines promote disease awareness and encourage patients to talk to their doctors about treatment options. However, the ads often exaggerate benefits, understate risks and pressure physicians to prescribe costly brand-name medications. As a response, Sanders and King proposed the "End Prescription Drug Ads Now Act," introduced amid growing concerns over the pharmaceutical industry's influence on public health messaging, that would shut down pharmaceutical marketing across television, print, digital platforms and social media. "The American people are sick and tired of greedy pharmaceutical companies spending billions of dollars on absurd TV commercials pushing their outrageously expensive prescription drugs," Sanders said. "It is time for us to end that international embarrassment. The American people don't want to see misleading and deceptive prescription drug ads on television. They want us to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and ban these bogus ads." The bill, if passed, would represent the most significant restriction on pharmaceutical marketing in nearly three decades.

Kennedy urges lawmakers to eliminate direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising from American media

The bill follows repeated calls by Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to eliminate drug ads from American media. Kennedy, who pledged during his independent presidential run to remove drug ads from American TV screens, has repeatedly claimed the ads are harmful to public health and skew public perception of the pharmaceutical industry. He has argued that the permissive advertising laws of the U.S. encourage overmedication and give pharmaceutical companies outsized sway over media narratives. (Related: TV drug ads are not about selling more pharmaceuticals; they're about Big Pharma BUYING OFF the media.) "We're one of only two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers," Kennedy said in a video he posted on X in May, the other one being New Zealand. "Everybody agrees it's a bad idea." Now, Sanders and King, who both opposed the confirmation of Kennedy earlier this year, have joined the HHS secretary in his fight against direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. The latest news about Big Pharma's controlling influence over the "news" can be found at BadMedicine.news. Watch this video exposing how Congress accepts millions from the pharmaceutical industry. This video is from The Real Dr Judy channel on Brighteon.com.

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Kennedy urges lawmakers to eliminate direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising from American media

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