ADVERTISING--whether it is for pharmaceuticals, automobiles, or breakfast cereals--is designed to either inform, remind, or persuade the target audience about a product. 2 The marketing of drugs, though, is different from that of other types of goods and services, in that the target of the advertising efforts of pharmaceuticals is not the final purchaser of the product. In other words, a select group--physicians--controls the consumption for millions of others--their patients. This is the only industry (except perhaps our government) in which the buying decisions are not made by the ones holding the purse strings.

Pointing to this as well as many other reasons, many editorialists and letter writers have advocated the position that pharmaceutical promotion has no role in medicine, and that promotion efforts should be eliminated or sharply curtailed. Opponents of this point of view vehemently disagree, insulted that this approach calls into question their ability to distinguish when they are being" sold."