In his recent op-ed, “Don’t Silence Patients: Protect Transparency, Free Speech and Patient Outcomes,” for the Washington Legal Foundation, John “CZ” Czwartacki, Co-Founder and Principal of Public Policy Solutions, argues that stricter regulations on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising could ultimately harm patients by limiting access to important medical information.
Drawing from his own experience living with multiple sclerosis, Czwartacki explains how drug advertisements helped spark meaningful conversations with doctors and empowered patients to better understand available treatment options.
In his op-ed, he writes
When I was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1993, treatment options were limited. In the decades since then, a plethora of treatment options have been approved and come to market that have changed how patients like me manage our condition—some of which I have learned about through drug ads. These ads, alongside my own research and the meaningful conversations with my doctor, have empowered me to make better decisions about my care. Combined with thousands of other ways patients access health information, drug ads have played an integral role in my treatment journey. I brought this perspective to a recent webinar with the Washington Legal Foundation, where I joined legal experts to discuss recent policy efforts that threaten this very access.
Recent moves by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) foretell an itch that looks to add unnecessary regulatory demands, throwing the current effective and balanced approach for regulating drug advertisements into “tilt.” These potential regulations would obscure knowledge of novel medications from the general public by inundating ads with information that makes them useless to patients. Game over.
Let’s be clear: Cramming ads with more disclosures is just an effort to silence speech.
Read the full op-ed on the Washington Legal Foundation website.