How Dumb Can We Expose Ourselves to Be When It Comes to Drug Advertising?

The television industries' various corporate officers and apologists argue vehemently that the sex and violence shown on their networks do not have any impact on viewers perception of those human traits. They tell us children are not persuaded by the hours and hours per week of viewing people being beaten, raped and murdered, nor does it have anything to do with those viewers as it concerns the children's developing sexuality.

However, on the other hand, when one considers whether or not to advertise their goods or services on network television, there are hundred of surveys, financial reports and volumes of research to prove how dramatically effective just 30 seconds of television advertising can be. Those 30 seconds can cost hundred of thousands of dollars and in some instances millions of dollars. Thirty-seconds: That is longer then it took you to read to this point. What, you asked, does this have to do with drug advertisements. Everything.

Health benefit funds and other prescription drug programs are drowning in the swells caused by the dizzying, insidious and effective impact of drug ads that are on TV every evening, all night long. The American Medical Association along with every responsible health provider and health fund wants the ads to be banned and for good reason: Legal since only 1997, the over 2 billion dollar per year advertisements are effective! To what end? The pharmaceutical industry is nation's most successful profiteer in the nation. As far as the nation's drug dealers are concerned, "profiteer" is a kind word. (Webster defines profiteer as, "one who profits unduly from the sale of necessities.")

According to Prevention magazine, 91% of Americans see drug advertisements and 32% of them ask their doctors for specific brand-name drugs. Seventy-one percent of those self-medicators get the prescription they asked for. There are over 55 thousand pharmaceutical sales representatives, spending over $5 billion dollars a year, over $13,000 per doctor per year to convince them to turn you on to their product, away from their old and onto their newest product.

One could take into consideration any number of name brand drugs to make the point but one will do. As the November 17, 2002 Boston Globe magazine's writer, Neal Swidey pointed out in his article titled the "The Costly Case of the Purple Pill," (Nexium). Doctors call it "purple crack" and for good reason: The purple crack habit costs $4.00 for each pill or $1,500 a year. Consider this, the old version, Prilosec, (that is going generic and therefor caused AstraZeneca to color Prilosec purple in order to hold onto their patent) cost one particular heath provider of its employees, General Motors, $55 million. That not being enough in itself, the manufacturer, AstraZeneca, through legal maneuvers and fancy footwork that would be the envy of Johnny Cochran and the Bolshoi Ballet, the drug dealers managed to move millions of their customers to Nexium. Keep in mind that AstraZeneca has been unable to prove that Nexium is even marginally better then Prilosec. Remember now, 32 % of us see these pills on TV feel the need of it and ask for it.

I have watched those ads. Maybe I'm slower then I think, because most often I don't know what they're selling. I certainly do not know enough to ask my doctor to prescribe any of it for me. Are there complications that I should know about besides those rattled off within 2 seconds? Are there any conflicts with current medication? Is there degrees of condition that require the drug as opposed just taking it because I will find myself transported to some heavenly place to live out my life in shear bliss? Is it better then the old drug or is it the same pill wrapped differently, purple?

The most important question we should ask is whether of not we are participating in the demise of own health fund's ability to continue to provide our prescription benefit? We can have the answer to that question when we ask our doctor to tell us in what way the prescribed brand-name drug is different from the generic in so far as its effectiveness is concerned.

The Democratic Party is alive and well in Maine at the State House. However, the State House will have virtually no impact on the national drug dealers. Is there a possibility that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will respond to the American Medical Association's petition to ban "direct to consumer" advertisements? Before you answer that question consider this: The pharmaceutical industry is single largest contributor to Republican political campaigns; the President is George W. Bush; the Senate and Congress is Republican; in Maine, Susan Collins took large sums of money from those who are working to end the Maine Rx Program. Our other U.S. Senator is Olympia Snow.

I need a pill; can anyone recommend a pill for this?

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