A soon-to-be former Congressman friend of mine always used to insist that drug prices were high, in part, due to Direct-to-Consumer advertising. Another friend, a libertarian economist at Vanderbilt, insisted he was wrong, or at least focused on the wrong things.
Both missed the point. Whether DTC raises drug prices or not, the sums of money outlaid can, and probably do, create friction between the editorial and advertising side of most media organizations. Has it affected objective coverage of COVID-19 vaccines' development and approval process? We may never know.
What we do know is that alternative outlets, substacks, blogs, Twitter feeds, etc. have not been as circumspect. We include ourselves in that group. The debate that has emerged and continues to come into focus, is that there are still many unanswered and unexplored issues around COVID vaccines. Perhaps they all resolve in favor of the pharmaceutical industries but, to quote Lyle Lovett, "what would you be if you didn't even try?"
Join us on Wednesday as we take a close look PFE's future in the vaccine business.
Emily Evans
Managing Director – Health Policy
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