Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 23:50:55 -0400 From: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor) Subject: Doctors Against Free Speech To: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor)
DOCTORS AGAINST FREE SPEECH
Many doctors apparently are uncomfortable about having to educate their patients about drug prescriptions. Hence the American Medical Association's contemplation this week of an outrageous resolution to seek a government ban on prescription drug ads on television.
Predictably, the AMA claims that a ban on TV drug ads would promote the public's health. Patients, they claim, are demanding well-advertised prescription drugs that are not appropriate for their condition. But when that is the case, it is the responsibility of doctors explain to their patients why a different treatment may be better. Further, as some AMA members recognize, drug ads encourage people to see a doctor when they otherwise would not.
There are good reasons to oppose government-protected cartels, but the AMA has just given us anothr: Politically powerful cartels not only restrict output, raise prices and act to suppress competition, they also attempt to restrict the free flow of information if such restrictions would make their jobs a little easier.
To uphold the Hippocratic Oath, physicians should uphold the spirit of the First Amendment; drug ads create a more health-conscious public. Restricting drug advertising is bad medicine, and "protecting" doctors from the need to educate their patients would only feed public skepticism about the medical establishment.
See "Doctors Propose Ban on Drug Advertising" (Associated Press), at http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink3-24-1.html
For more on advertising restrictions and health care, see:
"Assessing the FDA via the Anomaly of Off-Label Drug Prescribing" by Alex Tabarrok, research director of The Independent Institute (THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW, Summer 2000) http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink3-24-2.html
"FDA Advertising Regulations Cost Lives!" by Paul H. Rubin http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink3-24-3.html
For more on health-care ad restrictions and cartels in health care, see the Independent Institute book, AMERICAN HEALTH CARE: Government, Market Processes and the Public Interest, edited by Roger Feldman, at http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink3-24-4.html
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