A reader recently wrote in about drug advertising.

“I used to work in production of TV commercials,” she emailed. “Unless I am mistaken, the U.S. is one of only 2 countries IN the WORLD that allow television advertising of pharmaceuticals. It is outrageous and it is clearly one of the reasons that our drugs are more expensive than any country in the world.”

I checked. It’s true that only the United States and New Zealand allow direct advertising of prescription drugs to consumers, while Brazil allows some advertising of nonprescription, over-the-counter medications.

This reminded me of a very special episode of the ABC sitcom “black-ish” a few months back. The father of the family, Dre, got a diagnosis of diabetes. He understandably freaked out a little bit. He couldn’t even bring himself to prick his finger with a drug applicator.

Then his troublemaking dad got involved. “You don’t need to be bothered with this mess,” he said, before showing his son a documentary on natural healing that was conveniently queued up. There were clearly some hard lessons coming. “Why didn’t my doctor tell me about this?” Dre asked.