Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

Long time reader, second time writer . . .

There I was, still minding my own business four months after the Food and Drug Administration introduced new restrictions on pharmaceutical ads, when I came across Emma Yasinski’s piece at the non-profit MedShadow Foundation, asking whether the new FDA guidelines were making a difference in the five billion dollars worth of national television advertising bombarding U.S. consumers every year.

The FDA’s new rules establish guidance to ensure that TV and radio ads clearly communicate the risks and benefits of medications. They recommend measures such as keeping text on screen long enough to read, minimizing distractions from images and audio, and other strategies to help viewers fully grasp how a drug may affect them.

Still, this guidance—nearly 15 years in the making—warrants a closer look, especially given [HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s] stance that direct-to-consumer drug commercials should be eliminated entirely.

It’s also worth asking: Will it bring real change to the drug ads we’ve grown so accustomed to during commercial breaks?

According to at least one expert, the answer to that question is simple: No.

Looking for a second opinion on the state of the Pharmaceutical Distraction Machine (PDM), Doc. Any encouraging symptoms?

– On My Meds

Dear OMM,

If there’s been a measurable effect of the new FDA guidelines on prescription drug advertising, you can’t tell by looking.

Case in point: This national TV spot for Ponvory, “a once-daily pill for adults with relapsing MS [multiple sclerosis].”

PDM Index: Off the charts. primarily owing to a scene where Animated Girl runs about and nimbly climbs metal stairways while a sweet-voiced female announcer says, “Ponvory can increase your risk of serious infections that can be life-threatening and may cause death.”

Got that? Probably not – which is, of course, the whole point.

So how, you might ask, is the FDA supposedly enforcing its new advertising guidelines? Here’s how MedShadow’s Emma Yasinski describes the system.

:If the FDA determines that a company’s advertisements violate their updated standards, it can issue one of three types of letters: an It Has Come to Our Attention (IHCTOA) letter, an Untitled letter, and a Warning letter . . . A Warning letter is the most serious type of letter the FDA can send. It details violations and allows companies to respond and correct their violations within 15 days (or explain why it’ll take longer than that), before the agency takes enforcement actions, such as seizing supplies of the drug or taking the company to court.

But . . . “[FDA officials] have declined to say whether enforcement will go beyond issuing advisory letters—recommendations that, for now, carry no direct consequences for companies that choose to ignore them.”

Which is exactly what the companies are doing, to all appearances.

The Doc’s diagnosis: RFK Jr. wants to ban prescription drug ads; Donald Trump wants to gut the FDA, as Alexis Sterling detailed at the progressive website Nation of Change. Here’s betting that the Pharmaceutical Distractionb Machine keeps chugging along, despite any other mishegoss that rains down on the FDA.