I propose that pharmaceuticals that require a prescription to acquire not be allowed to be advertised publicly. Every day we are bombarded with TV, radio, and print ads trying to get us to ask for specific name brand meds from our doctors. How much money is spent on advertising these drugs? Well according to the New England Journal of Medicine (Aug  16, 2007) 29.9 BILLION dollars was spent trying to tell us what drugs we needed to be taking. We have legal substances that we are not allowed to advertise, but then we have the pharmaceuticals business. Have you noticed the side effects that they list? Those are not “may cause drowsiness” type warnings…  The FDA needs to put the advertising limitations back into place. The doctors can read about the new drugs in their trade magazines such as The New England Journal of Medicine or Journal of the American Medical Association. If we need medicines, our doctors have to write the prescription anyway, let them decide without us thinking we know organic chemistry and such.  After the pharmaceutical industry loses that revenue drain, we can go after them to reduce the cost of their products. I respect that it is an expensive industry with all the regulations and research costs. Do we want that large of an advertising budget passed on to us? Or to our insurance companies where it effects our premiums? I think not!