Back-Door Drug Ad Ban Makes Paternalism Great Again
The Make America Healthy Again movement led by President Trump and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has shaken up the traditional government approach to public health by seeking to empower consumers to make better choices concerning their own health and putting responsibility for treatment decisions back in the hands of patients and their doctors rather than the nanny-state “bureaucrats know best” approach that reached its apotheosis during the Covid fiasco.
But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is advancing a new rule, Transparency in Direct-to-Consumer Advertising, that contradicts MAHA’s core commitment to providing consumers with better information to make informed choices about their treatments with their doctors. And with Democrats poised to control both chambers of Congress and a wave of Democratic Socialists on the way, the rule would give the new majority a template for going after the commercial speech of lawful industries it disfavors.
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