Patients like me benefit from helpful drug ads on TV | Dorothy Leone-Glasser

Along the way, I discovered that staying informed isn’t just helpful. It’s survival. Over the years, I’ve learned to manage my condition by actively seeking out new treatments and engaging in thoughtful conversations with my doctors. 

That’s why I’m deeply concerned about proposals to add additional regulations that would effectively make direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisements useless for patients.

One of the many ways I stay informed about the latest treatments is through drug ads, which provide information about treatments to me and many of the patients I work with. These ads are not perfect. But for patients, they are a genuine resource.

The push in Washington to further regulate drug ads misses how real patients actually navigate their healthcare. When living with and managing a chronic illness, the learning never stops — you want to constantly discover new treatments, pick up tips from fellow patients and find ways to alleviate symptoms. When a new treatment becomes available, I want to know about it. 

Drug ads are costly, deceptive, shouldn't blanket TV | Brandon Novick

I’m not alone. Throughout my decades of patient advocacy work, I’ve spoken with countless individuals managing autoimmune conditions, rare diseases and chronic pain — people who describe seeing a television ad or a magazine insert as the moment they finally had a name for what they were experiencing or learned that a treatment option existed. That kind of awareness has real effects on health outcomes.

Critics of drug ads often point to cost, arguing that these ads drive up healthcare spending by pushing patients toward expensive branded medications. But research from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that a significant share of the doctor visits prompted by pharmaceutical advertising results in prescriptions for non-advertised generic drugs, or no new prescription at all.

In other words, patients who become curious enough to consult their doctor don’t automatically walk out with a brand-name drug. They walk out better informed.

What drug ads do is open a door. What happens next is a conversation between a patient and their physician, and that’s the way healthcare decisions should be made. A 2025 Harris Poll found that 70% of respondents said they’re “somewhat” or “very” likely to ask their doctor about a prescription medication after seeing an ad for it. Overregulating those ads doesn’t lower costs or improve care. It threatens to close one of the few channels through which patients can independently access new information about their conditions. 

Patient empowerment depends on access to information. When I was first diagnosed with lupus, I had almost no framework for understanding what my body was doing or what could be done about it. Over the years, I built that knowledge through every resource available to me, including medical journals, patient communities, advocacy organizations and drug advertisements. Each resource contributed to my ability to walk into a doctor’s office as a partner in my own care, rather than a passive recipient.

Policies that would further regulate pharmaceutical advertising send the opposite message. They suggest that patients cannot be trusted to evaluate information critically and that we need to be shielded from knowledge of our own treatment options. That paternalistic view is not only wrong, but it’s harmful.

The current drug advertising framework is effective at keeping patients safe from harmful products, misleading claims and bad actors, while keeping us informed about new and emerging treatments that could provide genuine relief. Before policymakers in Washington move to restrict these drug ads, they should consider the perspective of the patients who rely on them to stay informed and engaged in their care.