Promoted ads and videos for the cancer drug Cyramza (ramucirumab) began showing up on Twitter in May. They’ve also appeared in print publications. The ads encourage you to read the words of “determined Cyramza patients” whose faces come alive with color as phrases such as “I want to keep a flower garden” “I want to dance off-beat with my wife, while my daughters laugh and call us embarrassing” animate.

The ad, which has been viewed more than 1.1 million times, sells the idea that Cyramza will breathe new life into patients who are “determined to keep fighting.” The drug’s manufacturer, Eli Lilly and Company, didn’t introduce the idea that cancer is a war to be fought as aggressively as possible. But its ad is banking—literally—on the fact that people with cancer and their family members and friends believe it.

That belief is not innocuous. In fact, it causes real patient harm.

Learn more in my newest blog post on HealthNewsReview