It’s worth noting that drug adverts aimed directly at the public are legally allowed only in the United States and New Zealand, as pretty much everywhere else in the developed world has banned them, for the simple reason that they work. Patients are so much more easily misled by drug company advertising than doctors that the budget for direct-to-consumer advertising in America has risen twice as fast as the budget for addressing doctors directly. These ads have been closely studied by medical academic researchers and have been repeatedly shown to increase patients’ requests for the advertised
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