In a recent issue of JAMA Network Open, Aaron Kesselheim and colleagues published the results of a study showing that some of the most heavily advertised drugs are essentially no better at treating disease than other options. Almost two dozen complaints submitted to the FCC focused on the number of pharma ads on TV, with consumers arguing that there were “simply too many.”

I could argue strongly that patients have changed how they make healthcare treatment decisions based on what happened over the last three years. Research found that 61 percent of participants trusted the pharmaceutical sector, but despite this increase, the pharma sector is the least trusted subsector of healthcare. The question then becomes, “do people trust DTC marketing?”.