The FDA spent more than 15 years crafting the guidelines, which are designed to do away with industry practices that downplay or distract viewers from drug risks.

The agency’s new guidelines are created to eliminate pharmaceutical company practices that minimize or distract consumers from knowing risk information about drugs.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ( FDA) now requires TV and radio drug ads to be clearer and more direct. The new guidelines, which have been over 15 years in the making, are designed to end industry practices that downplay or distract viewers from risk information.

Those ever-present TV drug ads showing patients hiking, biking or enjoying a day at the beach could soon have a different look: New rules require drugmakers to be clearer and more direct when explaining their medications' risks and side effects.

The new rules instruct drugmakers to use simple, consumer-friendly language when describing their drugs, without medical jargon.