CNN – President Donald Trump is aiming to ramp up scrutiny on pharmaceutical ads — both on TV and social media — as his administration accuses companies of misleading the public about medications and their side effects.
A directive Trump signed Tuesday tasks the US Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies with greater enforcement of existing regulations governing direct-to-consumer drug advertising that administration officials say companies have increasingly flouted in recent years.
In another potentially significant move, administration officials said the US Food and Drug Administration will craft new regulations that would effectively eliminate a decades-old provision that officials have blamed for fueling an explosion of drug ads on television and elsewhere.
It’s another attempt by Trump to follow through on his long-held pledge to crack down on the pharmaceutical industry. His administration is already pushing drug makers to sell more of their products directly to consumers, in an effort to lower prices.
Trump wrote a letter to 17 drug company CEOs in July directing them to participate in programs to sell certain drugs directly to consumers or business at “Most Favored Nation” prices, a phrase that refers to the lowest price paid for a drug in a peer country.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also made it clear he is no fan of drug ads on TV, posting on X last year that he would seek to ban pharmaceutical advertising if Trump won the election.
The memorandum stops well short of seeking a total prohibition. But administration officials earlier on Tuesday argued that the effort to bolster enforcement and eventually require more extensive disclosures amounted to the “strongest, boldest action that we can take” to ensure “patients have adequate safety information on pharmaceutical ads” …
