I've read the article suggested at the top of this thread. What occurs to me is that having gotten rid of all the cigarette ads on the TV, "something" had to take their place. I see these ads as kind of filling a metaphysical void. American culture requires that a certain amount of advertising crap - about what we need to feel right - gets funneled into the popular brain.

Remember: cigarettes were once touted as being actually good for us. At the very least, you would feel more "refreshed" after having one.

It really is a mind teaser for me to try and figure which is more sinister - the direct to consumer ads or those pitched to the docs. I think both types work so much together as a tag team. Docs who prescribe and patients who request or consent mindlessly to ingest what is prescribed are playing each side to what the other party has been conditioned toward.

That is really sinister: That the consumers are being softened up to accept as a natural course that the answer is always some drug that the doc needs to scribble on the pad. Meanwhile the docs are conditioned to feel that is what the consumer will expect, and, also, what will be most efficacious. How many busy docs really go to the "literature" on a frequent basis and scrutinize the science?