The Breakfast Table

Boolah Boolah

Dear Bill–

My Slate colleague Tim Noah sent me, and I sent you, a story I’m really eager for your reaction to. It’s from your own National Review Web site and reports that conservative students at Yale are organizing a boycott of this year’s commencement speech, by Hillary Clinton.

Now, a boycott is not censorship or even attempted censorship. And your famous first book, God and Man at Yale, argued forcefully that First Amendment values are out of place on (private) college campuses. Anyway, no one is obligated to attend a college graduation ceremony, even his or her own. On the other hand, an organized boycott is a bit different from individuals deciding individually not to attend. This kind of action and the fuss generated around it are a currency that can lose value from overuse. Even after eight-plus years, I am amazed at the depth of Hillary hatred. Is she really so terrible that she’s worth this kind of protest? If you were at Yale now, would you join the boycott?

The other issue I’d like your take on, because I’m of two minds, comes from an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, which reports that the FDA is looking again at its 1997 policy change that allowed prescription drugs to be advertised to consumers. The Rx ads that now crowd the tube are often hilarious. Presumably because of residual regulations, or fear of lawsuits, they tend to be vague about the product’s benefits but specific about its risks. Some of them don’t even tell you what the pill in question is supposed to do, only that it is very wonderful (“Honestly, Helen, it’s changed my life.” “I know, Marge, and I’m going to call my doctor about it tomorrow!”), and by the way it can cause diarrhea, bad breath, cancer, and depression.

But the ads work. Patients badger their doctors for these drugs and the doctors go along. I have no doubt that in many, many cases a cheaper drug or no drug at all would be just as good. You might say, so what? Free people have the right to waste their own money. But the cost of drugs, or much of it, is socialized through government programs or private insurance. And of course you have spent decades rebutting J.K. Galbraith (rebutting, not refuting) about the nefarious demand-creating effects of advertising. But here it seems undeniable.

On the other hand, in the land of the First Amendment, why should the government be telling companies they can’t communicate (presumably) accurate information to anyone they want? (There’s a whole thicket of arguments and counterarguments about “commercial” speech, but that’s where I come out.) Furthermore, the whole prescription regime is a government-run protection racket for doctors. You’re famous for believing that people should be able to use whatever illegal drugs they want without government interference. What about prescription drugs?

Yours,
M

P.S.: I see we’re down to initials now. Do you prefer to be B, or Mr. B? (No, wait, let’s not start all that up again …)