Trump directs FDA to limit DTC drug advertising, with legal challenges sure to follow

Fierce Pharma ^ | Sep 10, 2025 11:28am | Kevin Dunleavy

[Georgia Girl 2]

We don’t even have our TV hooked up at home but for the past two weeks we’ve been staying at a hotel while repairs are being made to our house. We had extensive damage from a tree falling on the roof. Anyway we noticed that there’s just one after another drug ad on TV. Half the time you can’t figure out what affliction its even for.

[Jacquerie]

Neurotin

Vioxx

Oxycontin

Tylenol

Statins

Johnson’s Baby Powder

I’m sure I’ve missed drugs in which Big Pharma lied to the public and doctors to make extra $ billions.

All of the above were approved by the FDA.

[WASCWatch]

Here is one situation I recently experienced. My blood potassium level was very high. I was offered a recently created prescription for a drug that cost over $500 per month. I remembered that 2-3 months prior, I needed a prescription for sodium bicarbonate to resolve the high potassium level.

Sodium bicarbonate is baking soda. Turns out that 1/2 teaspoon mixed in a glass of water will reduce the blood high potassium problem. Just stir it into a glass of water and drink it. That has gotten my blood potassium level down to normal.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Do you know why your potassium was high?

[WASCWatch]

Can’t say I have the best diet. That, plus I have Stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer. Also have chronic kidney disease. Kidney-related blood numbers aren’t all that good. Working on trying to improve them.

Just ordered a book written by Dr. Mary Bowden. She the one who lost hospital privileges at a major Houston hospital system because she was treating Covid-19 patients with Ivermectin with great success. She’s also a big supporter of using Ivermectin for quite a number of other health issues.

Some people claim it can also treat kidney disease and maybe even prostate cancer.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I am quite familiar with Dr. Bowden. Someday Houston Methodist Hospital and the Texas Medical Board are going to pay for the way they went after her for putting the well-being of her patients first.

Hope she can help your health issues.

[cpdiii]

Vioxx was particular egregious. They deleted data about increased heart related problems during the clinical trials. They lied and got caught. They simply wrote the checks to the victims and the government. A check does not bring back a dead husband, wife, brother, or child.

Merck once the most respected drug company in the world should have been destroyed by bankruptcy for this. They were not. If they had of another company would have bought it at a bargain price and those great researchers would have continued their great work. It should be noted that a clinical trial can be hundreds or thousands of trials in different hospitals or outpatient clinics. The individual running each trial has only a small fraction of the data from all the trials thus he or she can not say if this is a bad drug or a good drug. They just submit their data. Those that receive the data and assimilate all the data from many individual trials are where the evil is. They manipulate the data and bingo, the drug is approved.

As a young pharmacist I believed Merck, Pfizer, Astra etc. absolutely. As an old retired clinical pharmacist I do not.

[Jacquerie]

We recently tossed a barely open bottle of extra-strength Tylenol. Good riddance.

I’ve had four surgeries these past ten years. Three of the four surgeons prescribed Gabapentin for off-label use. I guess they weren’t aware of the Kaiser Health lawsuit about 20 years ago.

Before/if I go under the scalpel again, I will demand to know the drugs my surgeon intends to prescribe.

[bert]

It is my undestanding that drug adds are not prohibited by the EO but rather the ads must include the complete list of side effects.

The complete list is considerable and if included in the ad might be so great as to direct attention away from the actual product.

I can not confirm that thought however, I do not recall the source