An End-Run Around Ignorance
I hate to defend Big Pharma, whose entire business model is based on government-created monopolies, but this is silly:
In testimony before the Senate Special Committee on Aging, Dr. Peter Lurie, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, detailed how drug ads – on television, in print and on the Web – encourage doctors to prescribe pricey drugs to many patients who do not need the medication.
“Direct-to-consumer advertising is nothing less than an end-run around the doctor-patient relationship,” Lurie said.
What Dr. Lurie seems to be implying is that if your doctor doesn’t tell you about a drug, you shouldn’t know it exists.
By this standard, high school biology classes are an even worse “end-run". After all, if your doctor tells you that leeches will cure your HIV, how dare some faceless textbook corporation or teacher’s union suggest otherwise?
But I guess the right-wingers are doing such a good job destroying biology education with Intelligent Design that the left-wingers can leave it alone.