Only the USA and New Zealand allow direct-to-consumer ads by the pharmaceutical companies. And last year, BigPharma spent $5 Billion on this, and now the profits are rolling in faster than they can count them! The ads work.
Critics point out that a disproportionately small percentage of the ad time is spent detailing adverse effects and withdrawal issues (some 15-18% of the total ad time).
So, what's the problem with pharmaceutical companies selling antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs directly to the consumer? Is there a conflict? What are the hazards, and what are the benefits? Surely this is thesis material worthy of doctoral scholarship.
While I am a capitalist at heart, I don't believe that control of Health Care should be allowed to fall into the hands of those corporations whose only concern is profits. But that's what's happening.
There's a philosophical conflict-- On the one hand we have the pharmaceutical companies that are driven purely by the capitalist ideology (the set of ideas that includes goals, expectations, and actions that lead to profits). And on the other hand we have the practice of medicine that traditionally is ethics-based, often altruistic- and historically, profoundly compassionate.
When the institution whose only motive is profits begins to dominate the ethics-based group, the ethics-based group will unravel: they will either move toward the profit side or they will be controlled into silence.
What can be done? Maybe get direct-to-consumer ads off TV.
Maybe government should have the power to keep the profit-takers from conquering the care-givers.