Should We Control Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Pharmaceuticals?

The brief answer, following up on an earlier post, is NO! We need to be more concerned about the promotional impact of free-samples. Free-samples, handed out by physicians, hook both the patient and the physician on future, insurance-supported payments for expensive patented vs. less expensive generic drugs.

If you're interested in how the promotional process works and how important free samples are to kicking off a promotional campaign, you can read my recently published paper here (WARNING: it's technical and statistical).