I guess this is a pretty US centric question but I see so many commercials for drugs to treat very specific and/or life threatening conditions. If I had one of these conditions, I would hope I wouldn’t need to “Ask my doctor about…” a drug, but rather they would just, ya know, *prescribe* it to me. Are there really enough people with diagnosed conditions who’s doctors haven’t prescribed them the corresponding treatment that these commercials are effective? I’ve never really understood it but obviously they must be effective if there’s so many of them on TV.
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Usually, most medical ads are targeted at people being treated for the condition in question but who are for some reason dissatisfied with the drug they are currently on. The idea is that the ad will prompt the to go to their doctor and ask for a medication change.
Which is why you see so many drugs for psychiatric problems (depression, etc), neuropathic pain, diabetes, allergies and such–because for those conditions, picking medications is usually a bit of a crap-shoot, and it can take a while for you to find a drug that works well enough without too much side effects.
Other ads are aimed at people who don’t realize that an medical problem exists that they should be worried about. Those are generally the vaccine ads: “Yes, Mother of a university-aged son, you should be worried about him catching meningitis.”
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