That's what two Kelley School of Business (Indiana University Bloomington) professors who are considered experts in health care marketing are saying:

"In contrast to physician-targeted marketing, DTC [direct-to-consumer] appears to be an admirably direct and straightforward way of communicating with consumers"

Though they admit that side effects are downplayed and the ads don't discuss alternatives. But there's good reason for that:

"Certainly, the principal purpose of DTC advertising is to help sell products -- and the pharmaceutical companies want ads that will be most effective."

*sigh* But the reason for pharmaceuticals is to treat conditions with as high a benefit- to-risk ratio as possible, not to make a company money. I know, I know...capitalism and consumerism and blah blah blah*. Health care and medical treatment should not be based on consumerism. It should be based on...wait for it....HEALTH! Imagine that!

To give the professors a little leeway, they are experts in marketing, not health care per se, and they do address the cons of direct to consumer marketing and direct to physician marketing. The article was obviously titled to get attention. However, the idea that the DTC ads are ok because they're regulated, disclose side effects, and have evidence behind them ignore all the issues critics actually have. The FDA does not act quickly enough to take down ads that are incorrect or push the evidence beyond what it really says, negating the argument. Also, consumers then fall for the marketing and argue with their doctors about what they know they need, when there are safer, less expensive treatments or the treatment may not be necessary at all. 

I've heard people argue that they want a new doctor because theirs wouldn't prescribe antibiotics when they had a cold. Because they've been convinced they need them for everything. (By the way, colds and flu are caused by viruses, which don't respond to antibiotics - the over-prescription of antibiotics has contributed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria). And doctors have written books about how their patients are convinced that any little feeling of sadness means they need an antidepressant or an invisible condition requires a particular drug they really don't need (e.g., see Overdo$ed America by John Abramson, MD). And suddenly there are diseases that didn't exist until the companies needed to sell a pill for it (e.g., see Selling Sickness by Moynihan and Cassels).

Yes, those ads are doing what they're meant to do - sell products. The critics aren't arguing that...in fact, that's the problem.

I graduated from IU Bloomington, I received my minor from the Kelley School of Business, the professors there are wonderful and one of the two making the comments discussed above conducts useful research into how people make decisions about their health, but business getting caught up in health care is what created the mess we're in, so I respectfully suggest that it's time business got out of health care, starting with the marketing experts.

 *That's sciency talk for "I know what you're going to say so let me stop you right there"