From Harper’s January 2018 index:
Amount the US pharmaceutical industry spent in 2016 on ads for prescription drugs: $6,400,000,000
Number of countries in which direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads are legal: 2
$6.4 billion? Holy moly, what a depressing figure. Think about how much healthcare that would buy.
In case you’re curious, our partner in crime is New Zealand.
In case you’re still curious, permitting DTC advertising is a terrible idea that can only be satisfactorily explained by the power of lobbying.