Regulation of pharmaceutical marketing is interesting and exceptional for a few reasons, which is why I posted about it. First, business practices that are legal in every other industry are illegal if you’re seeking reimbursement from Medicare, Medicaid, or other federal health care programs (largely due to the anti-kickback statute, which prohibits offering, paying, soliciting, or receiving any remuneration in exchange for any product or service reimbursable by the federal government).

Second, media scrutiny and negative publicity play a particularly important role in shining a light on these practices. Prosecutors, regulators, legislators, and plaintiffs’ lawyers often react to this type of media coverage (note Senator Grassley’s letter to Pfizer). Thus, if coverage of the drug industry’s ties to Harvard Medical School sound familiar, it’s because we’ve gone down this road several times before with other drug marketing practices.

So to answer your question, the answer is the latter: objectionable drug marketing practices might continue without media coverage that might trigger, for example, a DOJ investigation or a letter from the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee.