I thought this might be a pretty good post to have by itself because it would carry different comments compared to the other thread, but the reason that so many drug ads are on US television compared to anything else is because the US and New Zealand are the only countries that don't outright ban direct-to-consumer drug advertisements. This ban was lifted under Bill Clinton's FDA in 1997 under the caveat that the ads list all the side effects, but of course they didn't realize how much they'd advertise.
Advertising directly to doctors was never banned, which is how Purdue Pharma, run by the Sackler family, members of the Triple Parentheses Gang, were able to outright lie to doctors about how OxyContin was non-addictive, resulting in its over-prescription and the current opioid epidemic.
https://jheor.org/post/2674-with-tv-drug-ads-what-you-see-is-not-necessarily-what-you-get
"outright lie to doctors."
You mean the guys with the 8 year degrees? Aren't they supposed to be sophisticated? The gatekeepers of medicine? And a billion dollar company can just "lie" to them? For years? With no pushback? Uh.. sure.
Stop believing in the "high school" version of the story. It's created by simpletons to keep simpletons from thinking realistically.
It's both. Just like colleges are indoctrination programs, medical schools are as well. If it's eight years of bad education, talking about an eight year degree is meaningless...they just had you for longer.
When the pharma reps and lobbyists are helping dictate what you learn...it just means doctors are being lied to for longer and more efficiently.
If college can turn young adults into freaks, it can certainly turn doctors into misguided quacks.
Now, yes, doctors also share some blame, no question. But they really have been taught one way to do things, and are massively incentivized - both positively and negatively - not to question it. If the line is Oxy isn't addictive...you could lose your license (that you spent eight years and tons of money earning) for questioning that. They're probably even lying to themselves.
But, yeah, it is also worth talking about that doctors generally aren't just in it to help people. It's a massive industry, and they're there to make money.
It doesn't take an 8 year degree to recognize addiction. The "line" doesn't matter. The prescriptions were documented. They had "pain clinics" which were obvious to everyone including law enforcement. Everyone was in on it.
There was no lying involved in the decision making. Just money.